Death on Demand

by Paul Thomas

  “He does have a way with words,” said Ihaka.

  “Tell me about it,” said Charlton. “It’s like being back at school. Having said that, I’m sure I’m getting less crap from him than he’s getting from the Commissioner and the Minister. The higher you climb, the heavier it rains. Still, I’m not asking for sympathy and no doubt I’d be crash out of luck if I was. I just wanted to say good job. You’ve earned the organization some breathing space, and we sure as hell needed it.”

  Ihaka acknowledged the compliment with a nod. Having dished out this carefully measured serving of praise, Charlton switched his attention to his computer. Without looking up he asked, “Any thoughts on Malone?”

  Ihaka flicked a glance at Firkitt, who was looking straight ahead, stony-faced.

  “Just this,” said Ihaka. “I talked to Lilywhite, next thing he’s dead. Ditto Yallop. Firkitt talked to Malone, now he’s dead too.”

  Charlton gave him a sharp look. “You reckon Yallop’s part of this?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ihaka. “I’m just saying there’s a pattern. Maybe the hitman’s taking out everyone who can finger him.”

  “How could they?” said Firkitt. “If they’re like Lilywhite, they’ve got no fucking idea who he is.”

  “Lilywhite called me his father confessor,” said Ihaka. “I don’t think he was finished with me.”

  “What are you saying?” said Charlton. “He wanted you to come back for another session, so he held something back?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Like what?” said Firkitt.

  “I don’t know what Ihaka thinks,” said Charlton, “but my guess would be that Lilywhite might’ve known more than he let on about those other cases, Malone’s partner and the old girl.”

  They both looked at Ihaka. “Hitmen don’t make cold calls just on the off chance,” he said. “Someone put him on to Lilywhite and the others. Maybe Lilywhite had an idea who. He reckoned he’d done a lot of amateur sleuthing.”

  “The go-between,” said Charlton. He got up and sat on the edge of his desk, clear-eyed and energized, as if he’d just had a power nap. “You’re dead right. There’s got to be a connection. All we have to do is find it. Find the connection, find the hitman, put five murder cases to bed in one go.”

  “And we’ll all live happily ever after,” said Firkitt.

  Charlton showed his perfect teeth. “Steady on, Ron.” To Ihaka: “Sergeant, you need to wrap up Eve Diack ASAP because we need you back on this. That shouldn’t be too hard. They’re not exactly criminal masterminds, Cropper and Parks.”

  “I thought you wanted me gone ASAP,” said Ihaka.

  “Circumstances have changed,” said Charlton blandly.

  “We still don’t know why Cropper and Parks killed Black.”

  “True,” said Charlton, “but if I was you, I’d assume it had something to do with drugs and proceed on that basis till you have reason to think otherwise. Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to my wife and kids.”

  Ihaka and Firkitt went down in the lift together. Firkitt leaned against the wall, hands in pockets, looking almost amused. “Give the man some credit,” he said. “That’s as close as he ever gets to eating humble pie.”

  “You’re taking this very calmly,” said Ihaka.

  Firkitt shrugged. “I just follow orders, I don’t get involved in strategy.” The lift doors opened and they emerged into the foyer. “If we carry on like this, we’ll be having nude saunas together before you know it.”

  Ihaka watched Firkitt walk away in a cloud of cigarette smoke. It was 9.20: was it too late to call Miriam Lovell? Probably. Should he have told Charlton and Firkitt about Black’s sex-on-demand sideline and the Helen Conroy shakedown? Probably.

  The next morning Ihaka drove out to Paremoremo Prison at Albany to see John Scholes, aka Johnny B Bad, the boss of The Firm. Even though Scholes had been inside for almost five years, he still pulled the strings. Word was the guys on the outside didn’t shoplift a gash mag from a corner dairy without his approval.

  The meeting took place in the superintendent’s office, the idea being that Scholes might be more cooperative if the other inmates, particularly members of The Firm, thought he was being carpeted by the head screw, as opposed to having an off-the-record chat with a cop. Personally, Ihaka wouldn’t have bothered. Those ploys might have worked on your average crim with his dim-bulb mind and Pavlovian responses, but Scholes was anything but average.

  For a start he didn’t look like a hardcore criminal. He looked and sounded like a fat, jolly Englishman. You could picture him as a choirmaster in the Barmy Army, beer in one hand, Union Jack in the other, swaying and sweating as he led another scurrilous ditty. He had ginger scalp stubble, pale blue eyes, a pink complexion, a beer belly, a permanent half-smile that was no indicator of his mood or intentions and an East London accent, even though he’d run away to sea at sixteen and lived in Auckland since jumping ship twenty-two years earlier.

  Scholes had one vanity, known only to his wife: a Godfather complex. He watched the movies – the original The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, not the botched third instalment – at least once a month. He saw himself as a blend of the two Dons, Corleone father and son, Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. Definitely old-school, a man of the people who hadn’t forgotten his roots, but with Michael’s icy acumen and inscrutable ruthlessness.

  So when a businesswoman, a well-known and respected figure in the community, came to see Scholes seeking revenge – although she called it justice – on behalf of her abused daughter, he thought straight away of the scene in The Godfather in which Don Corleone, on the day of his daughter’s wedding, is petitioned by the undertaker Bonasera.

  Scholes knew it off by heart: every word, every gesture, every inflection.

  Bonasera’s daughter’s boyfriend and another guy had plied her with whiskey and tried to take advantage of her. She’d kept her honour, but at a price: “They beat her like an animal. She was the light of my life, a beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again.”

  Bonasera wants the punks killed, but the Don points out that wouldn’t be justice since his daughter is still alive. After demanding and receiving the undertaker’s obeisance, the Don promises to make them suffer as she suffered.

  The businesswoman’s daughter was a brilliant student, already fielding approaches from some of the biggest law firms in town. She’d met a guy at a nightclub, one of those sleek young men getting rich quick in telecommunications. On their first date he’d taken her to an expensive restaurant and behaved like a gentleman. On the second, he’d put something in her drink – probably Rohypnol, the date-rape drug – taken her to his Devonport villa and raped her. Anally.

  She was so traumatized that she didn’t tell her mother until three days later, when all traces of the drug would have left her system. The businesswoman couldn’t bear the thought of her daughter testifying in court, the rapist’s lawyer making her out to be the sort of precious little bitch/princess who wants to be a Saturday night hottie, then wakes up with a hangover and the realization she did things that are going to get her talked about for the wrong reasons, things that former head girls and future judges only do on their honeymoon and subsequent stays at five-star resorts. So instead of going to the police, the mother went to see Johnny B Bad.

  Flattered by the approach, Scholes was always going to arrange for the little fuck to get a good kicking. The fact that it was anal rape took it to another level of insult and injury. The idea was to brand her and make it impossible for her to forget. Scholes decided to take it personally.

  He and a couple of henchmen broke into the rapist’s villa at three in the morning and dragged the rapist out of bed. Scholes shoved the barrel of his semi-automatic in the guy’s mouth and told him he was going to blow his fucking head off. Then they beat him to a pulp. The rapist had lots of toys and Scholes encouraged his lads to help themselves to anything that took their fancy.

 
But Scholes made one critical mistake. He assumed the rapist wouldn’t be foolish enough to take it any further, so he hadn’t bothered to conceal his face. He was picked out of a line-up and charged with aggravated robbery. If he’d set out to get the book thrown at him, he couldn’t have managed it better. He ticked every box: he had a criminal record, he pleaded not guilty, the incident took place at night and involved multiple offenders breaking into a private residence which activated the home-invasion provisions, a firearm was brandished, murder was threatened and severe injuries inflicted. He got twelve years, which meant he came up for parole after four. The cops, who couldn’t believe their luck, made sure that didn’t happen.

  “Mister Ihaka,” said Scholes, pronouncing it Eee-arker. “Nice to see you, to see you nice, as that Bruce Forsyth used to say. What a fucking quince he was. Anyway, long time no see. I trust life’s treating you well.”

  “Can’t complain. Yourself?”

  “Me neither. Just goes to show, don’t it? The larger gents like you and me tend to look on the bright side of life, unlike your lean and hungry geezers. I see blokes in here worrying themselves sick that if they drop their guard for a moment, some giant coon – no offence intended – will be up their arse to the back wheels in a trice. I always tell them, first off it might never happen, second, if it does, you might find it well to your taste. So what’s the point in worrying about it?”

  “And how many giant coon rapists have you had to fight off, Johnny?”

  “Not a one, as a matter of fact. Now some blokes would take that to heart too, start wondering what’s wrong with me, what have all these bitches got that I don’t? But I rise above all that. I refuse to allow my self-esteem to be dependent on the opinion of others. Especially degenerate fucking poofs.”

  “Listen,” said Ihaka, “I could talk about this stuff all day, but I’m kind of busy.”

  “Course you are, what with all these murders and such. So what can I help you with?”

  “A couple of things. Your boys Cropper and Parks, obviously. And Blair Corvine.”

  “Who?”

  “Come on, Johnny. I know they call it the wild west, but how often does someone put five rounds in an undercover cop?”

  “Oh, him. You wouldn’t credit it, would you? Five holes in the bloke and he’s still above ground. I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re asking me, Mr Ihaka.” Scholes’s eyes twinkled. “I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a full and frank inquiry which concluded that there wasn’t a leak, and therefore a little dicky bird must have told those bikers what’s-his-face was a copper.”

  “From where I’m sitting, it looks like you think the inquiry was full of shit.”

  “Oops, I better get the old poker face out.”

  “So why not tell me what you know? No skin off your nose.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, if you don’t mind.”

  “Fair enough. I heard it had something to do with an outfit that was ripping off other bad boys.”

  “Did you now?”

  “And that said outfit might’ve included a cop.”

  Scholes sat back, folding his arms. “What the fuck are you playing at?” He looked and sounded genuinely perplexed.

  “I’m not playing, Johnny. Corvine’s a mate of mine.”

  “I can’t fucking believe I’m giving advice to a copper,” said Scholes, “but here goes. It was looked into and a conclusion was reached. Everything I know about your lot tells me that’s the end of it, so you’d be wise to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “So it is skin off your nose? Makes sense. Bugger all happens out west if you don’t want it to happen. For that matter, from what I hear, bugger all happens in here if you don’t want it to happen, which suggests you gave the green light to Jerry Spragg getting his head kicked in.”

  “Well, if that was the case – and I’m certainly not admitting it, mind – shouldn’t you be thanking me?”

  “If that was the case, you would’ve had a reason.”

  “You want a reason?” said Scholes. “He tried to kill a cop. That’s just fucking nuts, stirs up no end of shit.”

  “I’m touched, Johnny. I don’t believe a word of it, but I’m touched.”

  “Well, that’ll have to do for now,” said Scholes imperturbably. “Was there something else?”

  “Just the brace of murders committed by your employees.”

  “What’s to talk about? You’ve stitched those lads up a treat. Case closed, ain’t it? Another triumph for the brown Sherlock Holmes.”

  Ihaka waved. “Yoo-hoo, Johnny, I’m over here – in the real world. Christ, they might as well have done it live on the six o’clock news. We know they did it, I’m interested in why.”

  Scholes’s eyelids drooped. “You’re talking to the wrong fella.”

  “You must’ve had a bloody good reason for it, because it’s costing you big-time. Your rackets are taking a major hit.”

  The half-smile stretched to a three-quarter. “You really think so, do you?”

  “I know so. If you believe otherwise, then your guys on the outside aren’t telling you the full story.”

  “Every leader’s quandary, old son. Are the troops giving it to him straight, or are they telling him what they think he wants to hear? It’s a fine line. You want them to be fearful, but not so shit-scared they don’t tell you what you need to know.”

  “How do you manage it?”

  The smile became a full-blown grin. “Well, not shooting the messenger’s a good start.”

  “You know those fucking apes are going down for Arden Black and his sister. It’s open and shut, so why not tell us what it was about?”

  The smiley creases vanished from Scholes’s face. “Can’t help you, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, I could’ve helped you.” Ihaka stood up. “I guess you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about me, Mister Ihaka.” Scholes clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back, his chair tilting precariously. “I haven’t lost the knack of knowing which side my bread’s buttered on. Take those fucking apes, as you so perceptively called them. You think I give a toss about them? We’re all better off with them out of the picture.”

  “Getting too big for their boots, eh?” Ihaka had his hand on the doorknob. “Well, glad to be of service. See you round.”

  “You will indeed. I’m up for parole again next week. Seeing I’ve been such a good lad, a model prisoner if I may say so, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to walk this time. But look, seeing you came all the way out here to say hello, I wouldn’t want you to go away empty-handed. The apes didn’t do the sister.”

  Ihaka gave Scholes a hard stare, but the fat man’s smile was impenetrable. “Why should I believe that?”

  “You came to see me because you reckon The Firm don’t do nothing without my say-so, yeah? Well, I didn’t fucking say so, did I?”

  He arrived late and watched from the back of the room as Arden Black’s coffin disappeared into the furnace, not sure what to do with his hands, seemingly wanting to shove them in his pockets but sensing it wasn’t the done thing at a funeral, if you could call it that.

  Ihaka assumed the latecomer had got his times or crematoriums mixed up. The forty or so others who’d gathered at the funeral home to farewell Arden obviously knew him through the café, his modelling work or his nightclub meet-and-greet gig. They were a type: skinny, vain, fashionable. The sort of people who’d rather be cool than happy. The latecomer was from another tribe. He had a she’ll-be-right haircut and his manual worker’s hands were chipped and scarred and lined with ancient grime. He was wearing scuffed brown shoes and a cheap, light-grey suit that looked as though it belonged to someone else. He was the only one wearing a tie, but clearly hadn’t put one on often enough to get the hang of it.

  Someone from the nightclub announced that Danny Howard, the manager, was putting on drinks, everybody welcome. The latecomer stood aside as the
others streamed out, taking no notice of him. If he was at the wrong funeral, Ihaka thought, he would have worked it out by now. He could have slipped out unnoticed rather than being the last to leave.

  Ihaka followed him out of the funeral parlour, across the road and down the street to an old, mud-splattered station wagon. He tapped on the driver’s window, showing his ID.

  “Detective Sergeant Ihaka, Auckland Central. I’d like to talk to you.”

  The guy frowned. “What about?”

  Ihaka couldn’t help smiling. “People keep asking me that. The bloke who was cremated back there was murdered. When people are murdered, we have to go round asking people questions until we find out who did it and why.”

  “Oh yeah?” The tone suggested he still didn’t get it.

  Ihaka got into the passenger seat. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he said. “Who are you?”

  Even that question seemed to take him by surprise. He eyed Ihaka warily for thirty seconds. “Glen Smith, but what…?”

  “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Okay, Glen, what was your relationship with the deceased?”

  “Warren? I went to school with him. We were mates. At least I thought we were.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “I can tell you the exact day,” said Smith. “Boxing Day, 1998. We drove down from Greytown in the old man’s ute, me and Warren and a couple of other guys. We dropped him off on Lambton Quay – he was meant to be catching the ferry over to Picton – and went to the cricket at the Basin. I watched the whole game, saw Tendulkar get a ton.”

  “Wasn’t Warren a cricket fan?”

  “He wasn’t into sport, full stop. Like the rest of us played footy, but Warren? No way. We used to give him a hard time about being scared of breaking his nose or something and messing up his pretty face. One time he said, ‘The difference between me and the rest of you guys is that I don’t have to go out there and show how brave I am to get a root.’ It was bloody true too.”