Line of Sight

by David Whish-Wilson

  But there was nobody in the kitchen tonight. A fluoro light buzzed over the table, its laminate surface wet with a slurry of cigarette ash, tissues and beer. The sink was full of dirty dishes and the bin by the fridge was crammed with beer bottles. The shower was silent. The television was off. The only sound came from floorboards that creaked above his head.

  There was a time when Swann had known every working girl in the city by their first name, but that time was gone. He didn’t recognise the girl in the room at the top of the landing. She sat alone on her bunk in jeans and a pink sloppy-joe, staring at the smoke rising from her cigarette. She looked at Swann with wary grey eyes and exhaled through her nostrils, tapping ash into the mug in her lap. Her long blond hair looked newly permed.

  He showed his badge and she looked unsurprised, just angled her head.

  ‘Michelle’s room’s at the end of the hall, number 1. The one with the Bon Scott posters.’

  ‘You already heard?’

  ‘Mitch told us about twenty minutes ago. Got us all together downstairs.’

  ‘Mitchell Davey? Pat’s husband?’

  ‘He’s here somewhere. You should speak to him.’

  ‘I will. Did Michelle have her own room or share?’

  ‘Share.’

  ‘The girl who bunked with her, where is she?’

  ‘Trace? She’s gone.’

  ‘Gone where? When?’

  Now the girl looked uncomfortable. She uncrossed her legs, put her hands on her knees. ‘Look, I’m new here. I don’t even know her second name. She just didn’t show for work this morning, just like Shell. Mitch said she’s gone home.’ The girl sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve. On the top bunk was a bare mattress with her belongings sprawled across it. The whole lot would have fitted into a shopping basket. Beside her was a sleeping bag that had been opened out to make a blanket, the cover stuffed with enough clothes to make a pillow.

  She noticed his gaze. ‘Glamorous, eh?’

  ‘You got a driver’s licence?’

  She didn’t complain, as he might have expected. He held the licence up to the light. ‘Marcia, from Dubbo. How long have you been away from home?’

  She nodded as if it were a reasonable question. ‘Eight and a half months. Something like that.’

  ‘Your parents know where you are?’

  She sighed, took a deep breath. Gave him a Shirley Temple smile. ‘Yes. No. They think I’m up the coast, cooking on a prawn trawler.’

  Naïve, but an act. Probably well aware she’d be putting out on a trawler too, whether she consented or not.

  ‘Policeman, you should really speak to Mitch now. I’ve got a headache.’

  ‘Sure, Marcia. I’ll do that. Where are the other girls?’

  ‘There’s a party on, down there in Katy’s room, number seventeen.’

  He listened. Couldn’t hear anything.

  ‘Not invited?’

  ‘Headache. Could you turn the light out when you go, please?’

  Nice kid. Not a good liar. Definitely not a player. Swann turned out the light and closed the door.

  Katy’s room was across the hall, three locked doors down. Her party wasn’t like any Swann had seen. Total silence, two girls on each bunk, three more on a mattress pushed against the wall. A homemade bong on the floor that didn’t smell like it had been used. Only one of the girls lifted her head off her chest.

  ‘Fuck,’ she whispered, then blinked and rubbed her jaw. She peered down at the steel fit in her hand – it looked more like a shank, was clearly not made for IV. Still, it had done the job, on her and the others.

  ‘Mitch said youse Ds weren’t comin’. Where is he?’

  ‘You Katy?’

  She shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded. ‘Yair. I know what you are, but who the fuck are you?’

  ‘My name’s Swann. Katy, where’s Tracey? I’m looking for Tracey.’

  One or two other girls opened their eyes, had a little scratch then went back down. Swann crouched on the floor next to the end of Katy’s bed. She was older than the rest, probably mid-twenties, but she smelt of baby powder. In her lap she cradled the head of her sleeping neighbour, whose face was concealed by long black hair and who was breathing slowly, too slowly.

  ‘You should ask Mitch that, Mr Swann.’

  ‘He’s not around.’

  Katy shrugged, closed her eyes but pulled back from the nod. ‘She went to something better paying, Mitch reckons. He always says, You look after Mitch, he’ll look after you. Mitch an’ the dobbin bitch, eh? Whatever she told him about Michelle, though … Well, lucky for her she’s gone. Mitch, he can try and make up with us all he likes, free gear for a party, sure, but …’

  Then she was down again, this time into a nodding embrace. He found her handbag under the bed. Condoms. A lighter, knife. Makeup kit. Lipstick. Wallet. In the wallet was more money than Swann earned in a month, a tiny foil packet and a photograph – of Michelle and herself, Kate Hilsdon, formerly of Newtown, Sydney. Her licence had expired in ’74, but Swann wrote down the details on the back of the photo and slipped it into his pocket.

  Michelle’s room was locked, which gave him some hope that it hadn’t been cleaned out yet. It was an old lock and the jamb was loose. He lifted the handle and pressed, then slammed his hip into the door.

  It splintered on the first try, broke right open on the next. He put the light on. Bon Scott everywhere: newspaper cut-outs; posters of the hometown hero shirtless and reclining on a purple Monaro; shirtless and kneeling onstage, gilded with neon sweat, leering into the camera. Against one wall was a small dresser with a mirror covered in lipstick kisses. A toiletries bag, hand cream, makeup. Vaseline and condoms in the drawer. A building-society passbook with weekly deposits of four hundred dollars. A photograph of an old woman on a farmyard porch, stroking a border collie.

  The top bunk was stripped down but the bottom bed was unmade – pillows and a doona – and a sports bag underneath it. He pulled it out and put it on the bed. It was packed with neatly folded washing, a brand-new Barbara Cartland novel, and a leather diary with a pencil on a string and a small brass lock.

  Swann pocketed the diary and turned, just as the softball bat arced past his head and smashed onto the top bunk, sending a metallic shiver through the thin walls.

  He snapped a reflex punch into the ribcage of his assailant and barely had time to recognise Mitch Davey, whose head was pulled in as he came again at Swann. There wasn’t much room up against the bunk but Swann got inside the next swing and bumped him off, grabbed him by the shoulders and slipped on a chokehold. He tried to throw Davey onto the mattress, got a hand on the back of his head and yanked the chokehold tighter.

  But Davey had other ideas. He brought out a shiv from the front of his belt and stabbed backwards over his shoulder, just missing Swann’s throat. Swann let him go and sank an elbow into his spine. Davey was short but fast, and fighting on instinct. He flipped around and sliced the air with his knife before Swann got a rabbit punch into his throat, then another smack into the side of the head. It sent Davey to his knees, although he was still cutting the air with a broken left wrist that he hadn’t noticed yet, his eyes black and empty like a shark’s.

  Then he was up and coming at Swann again, who fended off the knife feints and waited for the big lunge. He caught it on the follow-through and this time got behind Davey and brought up the knife arm, shoving him forward, one hand in Davey’s hair. He knew he had him now, and he smashed his face into the doorframe, bringing Davey’s arm up all the way and forcing him back to the floor. He could feel the sinew rip and then the collarbone pop and the shoulder dislocate like a rotten stump pulled out of the earth.

  Mitch Davey screamed but didn’t let go of his knife. Swann stamped on his broken wrist, jumped back and started kicking his neck, his back, his head, slamming the door on him with his free hand as Davey’s eyes rolled and the air went out of him.

  Swann knew he had gone too far, but no voice w
as calling him back. The walls closed in like grey waves and then the revolver was in his hand and he too was on his knees, in the blood, pushing home the stubnose barrel and shouting at the top of his voice, daring Davey to show him the colour of his eyes.

  Donovan Andrews didn’t appear to notice the blood on Swann’s boots, or on his knuckles. It was congealing now, making the skin on his fists feel like bad-fitting gloves. He had changed out of his blood-spattered jacket into an old windcheater he had in the car – there was no need to alarm Andrews further – and it was dark enough on Kings Park Bluff for Andrews not to notice the state of his trousers either, or the .38 tucked into his waistband.

  On the path circling the bluff, angled lamps shed an emerald light on the trunks of the lemon-scented gums that stood like sentinels over the city. The bench where Swann and Andrews were to meet – an arrangement made via Reggie, at Andrews’ request – was surrounded by wax bush and stands of fennel gone to seed. There was nobody there when Swann arrived but the air around was thick with cigarette smoke. Swann took a seat and lit a cigarette of his own, and waited.

  ‘Detective?’

  ‘Come on out, stud. It’s all right.’

  Swann’s hands had stopped shaking but it took a conscious effort to keep his voice steady. He knew he’d left Mitchell Davey for dead. It was a relief when Andrews started right off complaining.

  ‘Why’d you get me asking about Michelle? Why didn’t you tell me she was Jacky’s little pie? Now she’s carked, I look like —’

  ‘That’s what they’re saying, is it? Michelle and Jacky were an item? You taken some extra knocks on the head lately?’

  ‘They’re saying a lot of things.’

  ‘How many people did you actually ask about Michelle?’

  Andrews was clearly rattled. In the thin light cast by the moon, Swann saw the nervous tic beneath one eye, the ridge of muscle where his jaw was clenched. Andrews blinked a couple of times, as if he were staring into smoke, started saying that he’d come straight from work, having spent the day gutting and butterflying sardines, even longer cleaning squid and sticking the knife into live octopi, their big black eyes looking right at him while he stabbed them and turned them inside out. He was licking his lips and gulping air, desperate to keep talking. All the usual signs that Swann had got to know over the years.

  ‘So what did you want to tell me?’ Swann asked when he paused to draw breath.

  ‘I mentioned it last time, right? How I’m going straight? Got a job down in Freo —’

  ‘Yeah, you told me. I’m very pleased for you, Don.’

  ‘Look, I’m working in a new restaurant, the Il Pomodoro Siciliano, down on South Street. It’s owned by Nick Mancuso.’

  ‘Mancuso? What’s he got you doing? And don’t tell me washing dishes and gutting fish.’

  ‘It’s true. He’s not a bad bloke, Nick.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘He only has good words to say about you as well. Boasted that you grew up together. Said that when you were a nipper you had a newspaper corner on High Street that you took off a Greek kid. Said his big brother tried to take it off you later but couldn’t scare you off, even with backup.’

  ‘That’s the way it was then.’

  ‘Nick also said your dad had you fighting sailors, that he ran a book on ’em, that one fight on the Esplanade went for near an hour. Big Samoan guy, but you stopped him. He was on his arse, you were on your knees. That made you the winner.’

  Andrews clearly had something he wanted to get off his chest, but he was too nervous to go at it directly. Swann would have to be patient. After what had just happened, the talk of fighting made his guts churn. It had all seemed less real when he was a kid.

  ‘Nick reckons he couldn’t believe it when you became a cop.’

  ‘What are you doing talking about me with a Mancuso? You know what they are. How they make their money.’

  ‘You think I’m crazy? I wasn’t talking to him, I was listening from the kitchen. They were boasting about knowing you.’

  ‘Let me guess. The restaurant’s always empty but the till’s always full. You’re working in a place that launders drug money, Don.’

  ‘Jesus, that’s true of lots of places in Freo.’ Andrews shifted on the hard bench, rotated his head, cracked his neck. ‘Look, these guys, it’s not like the old days. There’s five grand in cash, at least, behind a pecorino wheel out in the fridge – and that’s just the stash I know about. And the restaurant is always empty but the till’s full, like you say. They’re pretty good fellas, the brothers, but for that much money it’s not gonna take much for ’em to knock someone, to make it worth knocking someone. Know what I mean?’

  ‘That how my name came up?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you.’

  He stopped, and Swann had to nudge him over the line. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I was cleaning up the tables last night while Nick and his mates were drinking, getting ready to go out, when there’s a bang on the door. It’s not locked, though. In comes this fella I’ve never seen before, but I still spotted him for a D right off. He’s followed by a bloke in a flash suit, never seen him before either. Both of ’em drunk as fish.’

  ‘What’d the D look like?’

  ‘Real tall. Walked like a soldier – turned out I was right, the guy’s a Vietnam vet. He’s Casey’s new driver, name of Gilmartin.’

  ‘I know him, worked in Traffic. He’s a detective now? Bloke’s a bash artist, dumb as a bag of hammers.’

  ‘Well, get this. He’s bent like all the others – the chef in the kitchen tells me he’s worked with Nick for years, helps him rebirth cars and that. Anyway, he’s walking over to the table, the fella in the flash suit behind him, and Nick stands up, gunslinger-style, y’know. Nick has a few wines, gets a bit silly, right?’

  Andrews put his hands out full span, trembled them above his hips. ‘Like that. He draws, fires a few pretend shots at the D, full sound effects, blows the smoke off the ends of his fingers. Then he starts shouting, “Killer! Killer Gilmartin! Come and have a beer, mate!” And the guy just freaks. Went for Nick with his bare hands. Got a few rabbit punches in before the other blokes pulled ’em apart and Nick calmed him down. Even apologised, somethin’ I never thought I’d hear from a Mancuso.’

  ‘He see you there – Gilmartin?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, I saw the whole thing. Mad fucken eyes the bloke’s got too. Shouted out, “Who the fuck is that?” Kept goin’ on and on about me; they had to calm him down all over again. I had to go and introduce myself like the new kid at school.’

  ‘What did he want to know?’

  Swann had heard Casey had a new driver, someone who got the job in no time at all, privy now to all Casey’s movements and meets. And it made sense that Casey would use someone like Gilmartin, a bloke who wasn’t squeamish about violence.

  ‘Nick did most of the talking for me,’ Andrews said. ‘Told them I was a good bloke who could be trusted, except around women. Said that’s why he had me workin’ with a poofter in the kitchen. Made Gilmartin laugh, and he did calm right down, even got friendly with me. Asked me where I lived.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You know me, I never have regular digs.’

  ‘They stick around after that?’

  ‘For a couple of drinks.’

  ‘What was the other guy about?’

  ‘Tax agent, according to Nick.’ Andrews shrugged. ‘Anyway, Nick’s buying into some trucking business, picking up stuff from caterers, that’s all I could make out. I was back in the kitchen by then. Guess the other guy’s doin’ the paperwork.’

  ‘That’s good, Don.’ Swann gave Andrews a pat on the shoulder as he made to stand up.

  ‘There’s another thing. Ray Hergenhan, you know him?’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘Well, he’s banged up in Freo, hard time. I didn’t hear this at work, just roundabout, that he had something to do with Ruby Devine. Least that’s
what he’s putting out there. He always was a bullshitter, but.’

  ‘Yeah, he is. Still. I already heard the rumour about him once tonight. And he’s the kind of bloke always knows something. Might be his way of getting me down there.’

  Andrews looked surprised. ‘I only heard it today. No shit.’

  Swann nodded. ‘Mitchell Davey just told me.’

  ‘Never took Mitch for a fizz.’

  ‘There you go. Anything else?’

  ‘Only that Michelle, she was Hergenhan’s regular root. At least before he got banged up.’

  ‘That’s good too, Don.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Swann offered him a cigarette, tapped out a Craven A. ‘You mentioned the other night you’re thinking of bolting.’

  ‘Yeah, we are. But gotta get a stake first. Then figure out where.’

  ‘You should go and see your mother. Get away from those Mancusos, Don. They’re into some serious shit.’

  Andrews nodded but didn’t look convinced, no doubt had his eyes on the five grand in the refrigerator. Swann stood up and put out a hand. He’d never done that before with Andrews, and it made the younger man nervous. He didn’t want to let go of the hand.

  Swann pulled it gently loose, patted him on the shoulder again, before turning away into the shadows.

  There was little chance of sleeping now. Partridge sat on his bed and waited for the call. He was still furious, but the premier’s actions, no doubt the result of Swann’s revelations in court today, also had the effect of firming Partridge’s resolve. What’s more, they confirmed the decision he’d taken that morning before court, to hire his own investigator. The withholding of investigators from his commission was a deliberate and provocative act, and Partridge had been given no choice but to take the initiative. He would even pay for the PI out of his own pocket, if it came to that.