The Robbers

by Paul Anderson

  ‘Hey Liz, it’s me. Can I drop by?’

  Still at the Royal, in journalistic terms, Malone was building a rapport: a base of trust. Learning about The Robbers detectives as people as well as coppers. Taking an interest. The Stockholm syndrome: Malone genuinely liked these blokes. It was nearing half past nine when O’Shea decided to pull the pin. Gooch and McCrann too. They’d had their regulation ten pots and it was time to head home. McCrann’s wife had been on the blower grilling him about his ETA. Malone wasn’t too sure about Gooch’s home situation. The big moustachioed man was a bit of the strong, silent type: a walrus on the snow. Malone had the urge to keep going. The drink had seduced him, whispering sweet promises of good times still to come. As Kelso would say, the night was but a pup. But his list of options was limited, despite his boozy halo of confidence. He could always head past the Fleece and have one with Amber, he thought to himself as he stood taking a wonky piss at the urinal, tracing big circles with his crystal-clear water. Nah, he was too pissed to pose as a conversationalist. Amid his swirling thoughts, an idea formed and clung like a stranded sailor to a rock. That sailor gained a strong foothold and stood mid-storm screaming and waving a flag for full attention. It was an attractive flag. It signalled danger, and caution had well and truly been lost to the wind. Fuck it—it was time for some risky business. Live it while you’ve got it. Malone, more than most, knew that to be true. He arrived at the gates of Chinatown and flicked the cabbie a note. It was just before half past ten, the marble dragon staring right through him. The same door bitch was at her red-lantern post. Malone was sucked towards her, the lure of Chinese angel cake inside stronger than the Death Star tractor beam.

  ‘Detective,’ the door bitch acknowledged as Malone, tie akimbo, walked up to the door. She must have remembered him from last time.

  Malone turned his face to granite and nodded, giving his best Robbers impersonation. A haze of lager fumes and lust wafted up the stairs behind him. At a booth he ordered a drink—bourbon and dry. The fish tanks glowed, full of luminous colour. Darker intentions ebbed within Malone. Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure’ spoke to him. Taunted him. He had a love–hate relationship with that song. His hostess for the night called herself Destiny. It was a typical clichéd nom de plume for a girl who did her best work in the raw, but Malone didn’t care. While all the girls looked alike, Malone had an inkling she was the same girl who’d sat beside him on his first visit. The beauty spot atop that inviting mouth was the giveaway. Malone’s words seemed a bad movie dub, so after one drink and a cigarette he paid for what he had truly come for. Hand in hand, the slinky satin temptress led him to one of the sex rooms. After rolling on a rubber he slid eagerly into the Oriental. She gasped slightly, biting down on her bottom lip. Malone didn’t care if it was genuine or for effect. Destiny’s whimpers urged him on, encouraged him to plunge as deep as he possibly could. He wanted to go deeper, feel her heaven’s gate open and then hold her as she tremored. Instead, he plumbed her depths with what nature had provided. It wasn’t precise penmanship, rather more akin to a painter slapping his brush against a wall. As he lay afterwards, watching Destiny in the shower, Malone felt empty. Spent and drunk, he looked down on his flaccid cock resting back among the pubes like a hooded sex offender nestling back into the bushes. It was guilt. Pure and simple. As he did now after every seldom sexual experience, he felt like he’d cheated on Jess. He wondered how long it would be before he could avoid this post-coitus quagmire. And then there was Bowie banging on about love. It was all slashed and torn.

  Still in the Robbers’ office racking brains for an angle, Kelso took the call from D-24: reported armed rob at an Indian restaurant in Blackburn North. Two offenders. Both wearing rubber masks.

  The constable acting as log taker recorded Kelso and Rogers’ details as they entered the crime scene, PB13s and pens at the ready. It was time to document. Take meticulous and pedantic detail of any and every piece of information the scene provided—be it obviously beneficial or seemingly insignificant. The local detective provided The Robbers pair with a quick run-down. Kelso approached the restaurant owner. Name: Ravinder Patel. He began. They came in wearing masks—Sylvester Stallone and Big Arnie as Patel described them—and bailed up the three customers. Stallone taped them while Arnie moved into the kitchen area and forced them to their knees at gunpoint with hands on heads. Arnie stole cash from the till.

  ‘The man in the Arnie mask, he was rude at the end,’ Patel added.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kelso asked.

  ‘He criticised my restaurant. Called me a bludger and said my place could do with a good lick of Dulux.’

  Kelso wrote down everything.

  ‘Yeah, that is a bit rude … But what about the fact he robbed you at gunpoint? Don’t you think that’s rude?’

  ‘My friend, we are no strangers to violence here. My cousin works at a 7/Eleven convenience store and has been robbed twice in five months. My brother-in-law, he is a taxi driver. You don’t want to know what he has to put up with.’

  The beast was bucking within Kelso. ‘I’m very sorry for what’s happened here tonight. We are trying to catch these two men.’

  ‘Detective, you do not have to apologise personally for these men’s actions. This is not your fault.’

  Kelso scanned the scene. One of the customers sat with head in hands recalling his night of terror. An Indian employee told of his ordeal. The flashing lights atop a divvy van lit up the dim restaurant, its wall paint thin and cracking. Rogers’ mobile rang. ‘Right. I see.’

  Roy gestured to his partner. ‘They’ve just done another one—a Chinese joint in Vermont.’

  Voss dropped his son home some time after midnight. They lived a suburb apart now: Voss in The Basin and Nathan and Brenda in their new house in Boronia. Nathan dumped his cash spoils on the kitchen table. In the ensuite he took a piss. Splashed his face. Brenda, half asleep in her pink nightie, shuffled into the bathroom, slid down her leopard prints and sat on the toilet for a squirt. She spoke with eyes closed against the light, and trickled.

  ‘How’d you two go tonight?’

  Nathan spat toothpaste. ‘We robbed two restaurants—Indian and Chinese. Dad’s a fucking demon.’

  ‘Fuck hun, be careful. The wedding’s not far off. I don’t want you fucking that up.’

  Brenda stood, pulled up her undies and flushed. Moved to the basin.

  ‘It was full on,’ Nathan confessed. ‘I’m pumped.’

  With toothbrush in mouth he grabbed Brenda’s hips. Rubbed up against her arse as she washed her hands. ‘How about a root?’

  ‘In your dreams.’ She pecked him on the cheek. Wandered back to bed. Nathan cursed under his breath. It wasn’t on tap any more. Hadn’t been for some time, apart from the one rare occasion when his sperm hit her ovum.

  CHAPTER 25

  Nursing a sore head, his eyeballs sucked of all their moisture, Malone chewed down an egg-and-bacon roll on his way up to Melbourne Magistrates’ Court. In Courtroom One he sat in the back row, away from the other journos, noxious gases oozing from his pores. The smell of Destiny’s sweet and sour still on his fingers. As the old saying goes, he was as toey as a Roman sandal, despite the sex the night before. It was the male’s curse. He scanned the public gallery for any ‘talent’ from the flotsam and jetsam waiting to support their incarcerated men. Two young women stood out as polar opposites. To the right sat a foul-mouthed, pregnant, bleach-haired, pock marked, semi-lucid twenty-something. According to her bloke now appearing in the dock for house burgs and heroin dealing, her whispered name was ‘Sweet Pants’. His name, according to the breeder, was ‘Bubby Boy’. To the left, away from the dock, sat a stunning yet hard-featured piece: raven-black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Black eyebrows painted on an almond canvas. Make-up too heavily applied to over-accentuate her cheekbones. She wore a styli
sh top, a necklace with silver pendant nestled in her neat cleavage. Prada bag. She was a gangster’s girl: a squaw. Malone imagined her with ankles on his shoulders as he pumped her like her gangster boyfriend no doubt did; balls banging against her puckered arsehole before he withdrew and jacked off all over her tits like a porn star. The day-after craving was insatiable.

  ‘Silence, all stand.’

  Malone needed a smoke.

  A rat-haired, unshaven Glen Pascoe was first up after the adjournment break. Legal aid solicitor Kelly Hudson addressed the magistrate. ‘Good morning Your Honour, I appear for Mr Pascoe.’

  ‘Yes, Ms Hudson.’

  The prosecutor stood and informed the magistrate that the matter was an opposed bail application. A police summary was read, before Barlow told the court how Pascoe had terrorised customers and staff during the Melton hold-up; that Pascoe was a dangerous individual with access to firearms; and that police opposed bail on several grounds—one being that Pascoe posed a continued danger to the community. Hudson, no shrinking violet on her feet, highlighted Pascoe’s injuries. Tendered a doctor’s report.

  ‘My client was injured during an over-zealous arrest,’ Hudson said. ‘The Armed Robbery Squad rammed his car.’

  The magistrate scribbled away, eyebrows raised.

  ‘He is severely traumatised due to the nature of the arrest,’ Hudson continued. ‘A prison psychologist—and I’ve tendered his report—believes he is suffering from the onset of post-traumatic stress disorder.’

  The magistrate continued to take notes.

  ‘His mother, who appears in court behind me, Your Honour, has agreed to put up her house as surety.’

  Pascoe’s mum, mutton wearing a halo for the court hearing, nodded to the magistrate.

  ‘It’s my submission that Mr Pascoe has strong ties to the jurisdiction and in no way poses any alleged threat to the community,’ Hudson said; the journos scribbled her words verbatim. ‘In Mr Pascoe’s own words, he is a blithering wreck due to the forceful nature of his arrest—and is suffering nightmares and incontinence as a result. My instructions are that he cannot bear the thought of walking down the street for fear of being bashed or attacked by detectives. As I have already told the court, his mother has offered to provide him a static address where he can reside and from where he can report to his local police station—fearful or not—on strict bail conditions.’

  The magistrate continued writing, looking over her glasses every now and then at the contrite-looking prisoner. She granted Pascoe bail.

  CHAPTER 26

  Commander Morris Farley, the chief of the state’s crime squad detectives, stood at the lectern giving a sermon in the crime building’s main briefing room. In configuration before him sat his detective inspectors. The monthly comm/stats meeting was a time for squad bosses to be taken to task on their clean-up rates and to discuss operational strategies. A stocky veteran with silver hair and shocking fashion sense, Farley strutted with a master chief’s attitude. While he had runs on the board as a good investigator and a former hard-drinking demon, his problem in the eyes of colleagues still in the trenches was the fact that he was now a company man. A sell-out. A hypocrite who had shunned his roots and punished others for the very behaviour for which he was once renowned. There were ways to go about the transition into middle management while maintaining the respect of your underlings. In the eyes of those many, including Shepherd, Farley had failed that transition. In Shepherd’s parlance, Farley was a cheezel: a hollow crumbler of a man. He reckoned Farley would have been the sort of kid who took great delight in bending the directions of street signs before hiding in the bushes to watch the ensuing confusion. Overriding all of that was the fact that Farley was a traitor, a former squad mate and best friend who committed the ultimate betrayal.

  ‘Thank you, Bob. Excellent month,’ Farley concluded, his garish floral tie as distracting and amusing as a fat nude clown at a wedding.

  Shepherd leaned across to Detective Inspector Peter Carnegie, boss of the Drug Squad, and whispered something. Farley interrupted.

  ‘Something you’d like to share with the room, Shepherd?’

  With a straight face Shepherd sat, hands clasped on desk.

  ‘For the record, Morris, I’d just like to say that I disagree with Inspector Carnegie. I think your tie looks good.’

  Stifled laughter broke out around the room.

  ‘Inspector, how about a few less smart-arse quips and two Operation Paradox arrests instead. Progress on that investigation has been far from satisfactory. These two bandits are turning your squad into a laughing stock.’

  ‘We’re doing the best we can with available resources, sir.’

  ‘Don’t trot out the poor man’s squad routine. We’d all love more manpower and greater access to the dogs—but we all have to make do and share.’

  ‘My squad’s all for sharing. As you can see, sir, we’re sharing the love with a 74 per cent clearance rate.’

  ‘It’s not your clearance rate that’s of concern. It’s how you still go about it … Make the Paradox bandits your major priority. Up the ante on these shit-bags. I don’t want the chief melting my phone again on this one.’

  ‘Understood.’

  As a parting shot, Farley announced some news in the open forum. ‘Oh, and by the way, Shepherd. The Armed Robbery Squad will be accepting its first-ever female detective next Monday. Orders from the top. There will be media. Pictures. The works.’

  Shepherd returned to office, smarting over the fact that Farley had got one up on him. The cunt just loved trying to rub salt in the wounds. Not that the introduction of a female detective was Farley’s idea, but the dancing bear got to deliver the news in front of an audience, news he knew would sting The Robbers. McCrann walked a cuffed crook into the office as Shepherd approached Rogers and Kelso.

  ‘Put him in two, Trapper.’

  The inspector turned full attention to Crew 402. Kelso was chewing down on a chicken roll from the canteen. ‘Farley’s got a red-hot poker up my arse over Paradox. The wombats are demanding a result. I know you’ve been working extraordinary hours on this next to your other jobs, so …’

  Shepherd scanned the whiteboard. Red writing meant unsolved. Black meant charges laid. ‘We’ll give the Preston Commonwealth to Gooch. Trapper will have to shoulder the Flemington TAB.’

  Rogers asked, ‘Shuffling the deck chairs, hey, boss?’

  ‘I’d kill for another crew … Anyway, Paradox. It’s your one and only priority now.’

  ‘Boss, we’ve actually got an idea,’ Kelso offered.

  ‘I like ideas.’

  ‘It’s time for a new approach. Instead of chasing their dust, we should be trying to cut them off at the pass. It’s time for a stake-out op.’

  ‘So what’s your crystal ball telling you? Which restaurant are they going to hit next?’

  ‘It’s about saturating the eastern suburbs. Dragging in resources from C District and sitting off as many possible target restaurants as we can. We know what they like to hit—predominantly Indian and Asian joints.’

  Shepherd looked to Rogers. ‘What do you reckon, Roy?’

  ‘We’ve got to change the momentum here. We’ve pulled out all stops—and not one single lead.’

  ‘Risks?’

  Kelso conceded, ‘There are risks. We’ve prepared a detailed contingency briefing paper.’

  Rogers handed over the paperwork. ‘We’ve got every base covered. We just need assistance from the locals to make it happen.’

  Shepherd closed the briefing file. ‘Let me have a read and I’ll think about it. In the meantime, keep on it. Something will turn up.’

  It was late afternoon and Kelso was one up. He parked the squad car in the strip club car park. Jammed the police sign up on the dashboard for effect. Out of the vehicle, he checked the feel of his .38 on his hip, pulled down his suit jacket and walked inside to rattle a cage. At this point, anything was worth a try. For a suburban strip joint, Wet Velv
et was a busy little pocketful of pussy. Kelso made his way to the bar, catching pretty flashes in the angled mirror walls. A topless bar girl in a G-string approached. Kelso could see that she smelled pork straight away. He smelled something else.

  ‘Is Johnny around?’

  ‘Who’s Johnny?’

  ‘Cute … Johnny Maggs. Where is he?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘An old friend he hasn’t spoken to for a while.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Johnny’s got a few of those.’

  ‘Just tell him Shane Kelso wants to talk to him.’ Kelso placed his Robbers business card in the bargirl’s hand. She sneered as she read it. ‘Tell him to call me, or I’ll have to come back.’

  ‘Ooooh. Okay, scary man.’

  Kelso smiled. ‘Good to see the place has gone upmarket since I was last here.’

  The bargirl gave him the finger.

  ‘Do us all a favour will ya?’ Kelso added. ‘Put some bloody pants on.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Friday night drinks at the Royal were on. The beers were sliding, along with talk of the announcement of a female member joining the squad. Kelso and Teasedale were playing pool against two younger tradies.

  ‘The bride to be let you off-lead tonight?’ Kelso asked his boxhead mate.