Drive By

by Michael Duffy

  After the meal Farid takes me out to the garden and says he is so worried about Rafi dealing the coke and all and the family is going to try a new approach. He does not deserve this, Farid says. I know that and I can see you know that too. This surprises me he has noticed the way I feel and I do not feel so lonely anymore, I feel really happy. But I am still angry too and I say, Rafi who? and look around the garden like Where the shit is he? Of course he is not there, he is out at some club or somewhere like the conversation last Sunday did not occur.

  Bro, says Farid, taking a deep breath, I understand what you are saying, you are the stable one of this family and we are all really proud of you. Well, this makes me so happy there is tears in my eyes, and I say to him, This is good to hear because no one has told me lately and when I got my Lexus Third-Level Certificate last week and told them at dinner it was like I had just bought a new DVD at Kmart. Like nothing.

  Farid looks into my eyes and hugs me, and when Farid does that—it was the same with Imad—I know things is good and bow my head. Bro, Farid says again, it is these marks he is getting. I did not get them Imad did not you did better than us but you never got to uni. Rafiq will become an accountant and that means he can do things other people cannot do, just like Salim and the law. We have to do what is necessary to keep him getting the marks, so he can learn how to help the family.

  But if he goes out selling the nose thing, I say, and Farid taps me on the chest and nods his head. You are right, you are getting right to the point. We need to keep Rafi happy, let him have a good time but do nothing to interfere with his good marks. I go, Why doesn’t the papa just tell him to come home at night and study? Farid looks into my eyes again, like real deep. You must be fucking joking, he says. He goes, The old man cannot control Rafi. Then he checks his iPhone and I want to argue with him about this thing he has said about the papa, but no one argues with Farid, he knows too much and sometimes knows stuff before it happens. So I just think about the papa and Rafi and what Farid has just said, and feel sad because I see that it is the truth.

  What I’m going to do, says Farid, is give Rafi enough money to live the life he wants without doing any of the business. Farid says this quietly in case there are any of those listening devices in the garden. He will live in a flat so Mama can stop worrying about what time he’s going to get home and I will give him an allowance so he can live on it and buy those clothes he likes.

  The Qur’an, I say, but Farid shakes his head and says, This is the way it has to be for him to get these marks. He is not strong like us, John. He will need a better car too, I do not want him to think there is any reason for selling the stuff. I say, It is a bribe. Farid smiles and I see he’s pleased I understand him, although you don’t have to be too smart to see what’s happening. It is a strange thing because although I am jealous that Rafiq is getting so many things, I am also sad that this has to be done, because it means Rafiq has lost our respect. It is like we are not thinking of him as a real person anymore.

  I say, What kind of car? One of my boys has a Carrera, says Farid. It is second-hand, but Rafi will like that. I got to say I am surprised at this, when Farid said about a better car I was thinking p’raps a Beemer or even an Audi, I was not thinking a Porsche. Farid says, Would you like a car too, something nice? A Ferrari? I tell you, bro, the business is doing good. This makes me feel a lot better. But I tell him people at work and Danielle’s mother would be surprised if I started turning up in one of those cars. He says, Well would you like an allowance too, a bit of extra cash? I say I’ve got a job and do not need any more money. I am saving for a deposit on a block of land for Dani and me, p’raps he can help us with that one day. That Dani, he says, she is a beautiful woman. I guess he is not saying anything more about Dani because I am agreeing to what he is doing with Rafi, even though he has disapproval of her. I know what you are thinking, I say, but I have talked about it with the papa and mama. They say it might be all right to marry a girl she is not one of the people, if she is Danielle. Okay, says Farid, and looks at his iPhone again. So that is what we will do.

  Bec got the favour chain going, called a friend at Liverpool who put her on to a plainclothes officer at Bankstown who could probably be trusted. When Bec rang Bruce Elliott, he said he’d had nothing to do with the case himself. Then he told her all about it.

  Rouse Park was notorious for deals, bashings and kidnaps, the retail end of the drug trade.

  ‘Drive-bys?’ she said. They usually involved residences, not open areas. Part of the appeal lay in not knowing who you might hit as the bullets ripped through windows and walls. Shooting someone in a park was different.

  ‘That’s what they say. Three last year. Seven so far this one.’

  ‘Seems a bit random.’

  ‘They’re not drive-bys. It’s debt collecting. Time was, if someone owed you, you’d bash them, maybe do a kneecap. But with Victims of Crime compo, you get shot in the leg by an unknown, you get twenty grand.’

  ‘So Ian Hirst—’

  ‘The first report said it was a drive-by, but forensics put the gun up close and personal, less than a metre. By then he was lawyered up, changed his story. Said he was waiting to meet someone to discuss a graffiti work of art and this guy in a hood came by and demanded his wallet. They had a struggle and the guy pulls out a gun, shoots Hirst in the leg, pisses off.’

  ‘Happens all the time. The wallet?’

  ‘Still in his pocket.’

  ‘Got a shooter?’

  ‘Probably Hasham Kassim, but he won’t be charged. No witnesses. Lives locally, deals meth in the inner city. Your white boy was a client, must have got behind and called out here to renegotiate his debt.’

  ‘End of story?’

  ‘I’d reckon.’

  Bec thanked Elliott and he said she owed him one. Some people surely do need etiquette lessons.

  She hung up and reflected on Ian Hirst, middle-class boy. Her own life had moved from chaos to order, roughly speaking. But it could go the other way.

  DAY EIGHT

  Ralston disappeared at morning tea, and Martin recounted his success in getting a spot on a yacht in the next Sydney to Hobart. Karen listened politely, pressing the button inside her head that enabled her to cope with sports talk, as she scanned the area outside the court for the detective. She recalled what Ralston looked like, a little taller than most women but average in other ways, probably had a figure but hard to tell because of the cheap suits she wore, the sensible black shoes. Presumably it all made sense when you were chasing criminals down mean streets and climbing fences.

  So Karen scanned the square for such a figure, but one had still not appeared when they went back in.

  Half an hour later Ralston came into court and slid along the bench at the front of the public gallery. Karen glanced at her and she nodded; the witness noticed and stopped. Everyone in the court had noticed, but no one knew what it was about. Her secret life.

  In the cafe at lunch, the detective described what she’d learned about the shooting, speaking in that slightly laboured way she had. Her use of language was like her clothes, ill-fitting.

  ‘Ian seems to have got himself caught up in a credit-control situation.’ Explained how it worked.

  None of the details were new to Karen, actually, but hearing them applied to Ian made them seem so. She gripped the edge of the table, feeling nauseous. ‘What happens if he doesn’t pay them when he receives the compo?’

  ‘Depends how resistive he is, but they’d knock him, probably. As an example. These people have their brand to protect, that involves bravado.’

  ‘Bravado?’ The two women stared at each other, and Karen wondered why Ralston showed no pity. She said, ‘“Severe lead poisoning”, that’s what the nurses called it in hospital, in my hearing. A gunshot wound. I suppose you can become blasé about anything.’ Ralston still said nothing, and for a second Mabey felt angry with her. ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘I have family. I think a lot co
mes down to when a person realises actions have consequences.’ The detective blushed. ‘I’m sorry. But things can get overcomplicated.’

  She was very young.

  Karen shook her head, not speaking, still considering what she had just learned. Always in the past there had been an invisible but impenetrable barrier between herself and the criminal world she dealt with. It made her job possible. Now it was gone, as though one of the laws of physics had been repealed.

  Coffee came but she didn’t want coffee, asked the waiter to bring orange juice. Doubted she could eat.

  ‘He has to put in a claim for victim’s comp,’ said Bec, stirring her latte. ‘Has he done that?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘It takes at least a year. You could ask the police out there to keep an eye on things, once he gets the money.’

  ‘But I’m not supposed to know about this.’ She wondered why the police had withheld it. They must want something to hold over Stephen.

  Ralston sipped, took out a folded piece of paper and smoothed it open on the table. A photocopy of a newspaper article. ‘Bankstown Gazette, six months ago. Talks about shootings and victim’s comp. You could show them this, ask if it’s relevant to what happened to Ian.’

  ‘The police would deny it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Karen couldn’t tell her about the politics, she still might need her help.

  Ralston said, ‘Take a lawyer with you. Not telling is one thing, but lying’s another. If you put the right questions, you’ll get something.’ Another sip. ‘Ask to see the incident report. Ian’s trousers were taken for testing, ask about GSR, how close the gun was when the shot was fired. They don’t have to show you the report, but I reckon you might rattle them.’

  Ralston knew about the politics already. She must, because she hadn’t raised the issue of why the police had bothered to lie. Karen felt stupid, irrationally angry at Ralston for saying nothing. Thought about what she’d done, and how she felt about it.

  These days, so many unfamiliar feelings.

  And yet Ralston was looking away now, through the plate glass out to the street, as though nothing had happened. Maybe it hadn’t, or it wasn’t important. Karen felt intensely confused, a little like motion sickness. Hoped she wasn’t about to have one of her panic attacks, when every cell in her body would clench and then she’d have an almost irresistible urge to cry.

  Their lunch came and Ralston picked up her sandwich and took a big bite, ate as though she needed the food. ‘Let me know if I can do anything else,’ she said, her mouth half-full. ‘I used to take drugs, a long time ago. Not seriously, though.’

  ‘You? You shouldn’t be telling—’

  ‘Everyone did. Maybe you—’

  ‘You think he was really dealing?’

  Ralston kept chewing. When she’d finished her own foccacia, she looked at Karen’s untouched plate. ‘You’re not eating?’

  Karen pushed the plate to the middle of the small table. ‘It’s prosciutto and artichoke. Very nice.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Russell Knight recommended it.’

  ‘He once talked to me about coffee for fifteen minutes.’

  When they were paying, the detective said, ‘How you reckon the trial’s going?’

  ‘So-so.’

  ‘It’s been a bit confusing, taking over here. I hope I’m giving you what you want.’

  ‘Yes.’ Karen realised something was being said. ‘I’m happy with your contribution.’

  ‘I’m very junior.’

  Karen blinked, saw the vast gulf that lay between Ralston’s position in the universe and her own. For a moment she tried to empathise, find something to say, but nothing came. She was beyond caring about so much.

  Mate, one thing I was noticing as Rafi’s trial got closer was the mama, like she was at that time of the month but it was all the time now, she was crying and being by herself alone in her bedroom. The gossip all around the community was happening everywhere and the mama is so ashamed, which is strange when you is thinking about Imad and Farid and what they is getting up to, no one daring to say anything about them when the family members is present. But the mama is just so sad, p’raps because Rafi is her last child. Even the papa is not wanting to talk and not even able to concentrate on his television half the time.

  It was a hard time too because of some other stuff going on with the business, Reem and the kids was staying with us for safety and the house was full. The papa was spending a lot of time at the cafe or out with his vegetables at night, I heard Farid and Rafi laughing about that and it made me sad, back in the village in Lebanon a man could be a small farmer but here there was no respect. My brothers should not have been laughing at the papa who had been so strong for us always, like a lion.

  We tried to get the mama out of the house but she never wanted to go, not speaking English or anything. That was all though, if it wasn’t for that she could have gone anywhere she wanted. Skips think so much bullshit about the people’s women, just because we respect our females and keep their faces and bodies covered they is going on like they’re second-class citizens. Mate, if you ever told that to mama or Jamila or Shada you’d be lucky to escape with your balls on, I’m telling you. The truth is we respect our women more than any skip, they is like precious jewels to us, which is why they need to be protected, and that is what the skips really don’t understand. Or perhaps they do but do not want their women to start demanding the same treatment and have to stop hitting them and getting pissed and stuff. Our women can get an education and get jobs and go into politics and everything.

  Some of the stuff the skips go on about, like the people having two wives, is just old traditions from Lebanon that no one follows in the younger generation but you got to respect the old people. You see the young girls but and they is sexy and wearing tattoos and makeup and everything they is more attractive than most skip girls because Lebanese girls are thin and have these nice bones in their faces. But most of them prefer Lebanese men naturally and I’m telling you, that criticism of the way Muslims treat women is just ignorant racial prejudice by skip blokes who are just jealous because they have to fuck fat white sluts. It’s not that I don’t like the skips—Danielle is one of them of course so I am very tolerant—but I get the shits the number of times I hear people slagging off headscarves on the internet and everything, Muslim Youth is always running stories of this sort of ignorance. Don’t they know the people they is talking about are people’s mothers and sisters?

  Anyway, we were not telling the mama much of what was happening about Rafi’s trial, because after the committal when we all went to court and this stupid magistrate found there was a case to answer, she was too upset all the time. The magistrate was this skip woman with short red hair and you could see she was one of them feminists; I could see the way she was looking at Danielle in her tight black suit, thinking, Why are you friends with these women-hating Muslims? So she took it out on Rafi but Salim said after, A judge will never do that. Judges are all men so when we get to the real court our bro will have a better chance of justice. I wasn’t sure how much to believe Salim who’d said Rafi would get off at the committal but he didn’t.

  One afternoon a few months later there is all the drama. It is a Saturday and I is at Dani’s and we is both playing with Mr Smiggles when I get this call from Rafi, going Bro bro I is needing to see you now, I am at Toni’s and is having this problem with the Porsche. I tell him I will come over because to tell the truth I am not finding Dani’s dog all that interesting most of the time, not as interesting as Dani does, and it is good to have an excuse to get away. So I drive over to the workshop owned by one of Rafi’s old school mates, this guy Toni is a mechanic apprentice and is probably Rafi’s best friend after Edi Sande who is being a chef. While I is driving I is getting this phone call from the papa to say the jacks is at the house asking where Rafi is, and not saying why they want him, and is I knowing where he is? He should be here, the
papa says. He is on a curfew. But it is not the curfew because it is only afternoon time. I tell him I will try to find out and I hang up. I keep driving and on the way I pass about ten police cars.

  When I get to the workshop, which is like this tiny brick place all dirty and with just two hydraulic lifts inside, I see Rafi at the doorway, looking out around the corner like he is expecting trouble. I go inside and the Porsche is there and we is all hugging each other and Toni is shutting the door and going into his little office to read a magazine while Rafi tells me what has happened.

  He was coming home from a mate’s place an hour ago and suddenly there was two police cars trying to force him off the road and Rafi just panicked, he floored the Carrera and is getting away from these jacks and ducking through all these backstreets driving like a lunatic, and then he is hearing a helicopter but Toni’s place was not too far away and here he is, shaking and sweating and I can see he’d like to cry but he is so confused he doesn’t know what to cry about.

  What is you doing to get the jacks’ attention? I ask, and he swears he was just driving along at sixty K no worries, no traffic offences of any kind. At first when he hears the sirens he is thinking it might be the Deebs, because Farid has been telling us they might do something after something his boys did last week. But then he sees it really is the jacks and he is so scared he is racing away.

  You is using your phone here? I say and he says no, he rang me on Toni’s phone. Then he remembers he rang the papa on his own phone and heard how the jacks is at the house already, they must have got his registration number before he lost them. So then I is thinking we don’t have much time, and telling him to open the boot and the engine cover of the Porsche and getting a lamp from Toni and searching the car. At first I is thinking we might need to put it up on one of the lifts, but in a minute I is finding something, which is a Glock pistol next to the spare wheel. I is picking it up with a dirty rag and Rafi is starting to cry now, stepping back like it is a ghost and swearing to me he has never seen this thing before. Toni has come out of his office and is looking at it like he really wants to hold it, like a gun is really beautiful or something, and I is seeing I am surrounded by idiots and have to do things quickly. I check there is no bullets in the piece and tell Toni to crush it in his press. Sure he says, I will keep it here and do it tomorrow, so the noise will not be worrying anyone. I slap Toni across the face and tell him to do it now, and he hurries up and gets his machine going and we watch while the Glock is turned into little bits and I is putting them in a plastic bag and pushing them into my pocket and telling Toni he will have a grand tomorrow and this is what the story is.