Hard Light- Infamous

by Warren Hately

  “I dropped by,” Flanagan said. “You’re living with someone.”

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  There was no conciliatory tenderness in her voice. She was unapologetic, in a living room somewhere with her hands on her hips. Yet she sounded weary already – never a good sign.

  “No,” Flanagan snapped. “Yes. No. Fuck.” He inhaled and exhaled poisons in seemingly the same breath. “Maybe.”

  “His name’s Derek. I’d like you to meet him.”

  “Jesus, mum,” Flanagan said and dropped his eyes to the ground like they were leaden weights. Images – rather than anything rational to say – did slow pirouettes through his head.

  “He’s only just dead,” the words finally trickled out.

  “I’m sure it seems that way to you,” Anne replied. “It’s different for me. Very different.”

  Flanagan sat on the step, crouching over his knees, and let the human raindrops splatter the dry wooden surface without wiping his eyes.

  “Maybe we could talk about it,” his mother said. “Not on the phone.”

  He only agreed because of the inevitability. Though there was no desire to see or speak with his mother, Flanagan could hardly imagine avoiding her into eternity. The same rationale therefore extended to Derek, whoever he was, some poor bastard out there waiting to find out he was step-dad to a ninety-five kilogram ball of misdirected energy and bad karma.

  “Fine,” he snuffled out eventually. “Not on the phone.”

  “We could do dinner. Our place.” He heard the familiar tongue click of hesitation, trepidation, a continuation from his ancient past. “Tonight?”

  “I’ve got a job this afternoon,” Flanagan replied. “I’ll give you a call. Not tonight. Sorry. Not tonight. I’ll call again.”

  He disconnected before she could say anything and sat there slumped, daring the mobile to ring and have him smash it.

  *

  HE WALKED TO the train station with a quickly eaten and badly-cooked bacon sandwich twitching in his guts just as if hungry, white-feathered gulls were pecking at it left on a bench in some public park. The grey swirls seen in the morning had built up to a mass of thunderheads to the west, a subcutaneous grey layer trapping the heat and turning the day sticky. Flanagan crossed and stood in front of the rail bridge without any enthusiasm, waiting only a few minutes before Peter Roosveldt turned up.

  Flanagan was barely into the white Alfa Romeo before demanding to know where they were going.

  “Man, ease up,” the leering youth said. “I was hoping to budge a cigarette from ya.”

  Flanagan sighed and produced his smokes, rolling and then lighting his own and staring out the lowered window as the low-rise cityscape churned by. Roosveldt pointed the Alfa towards Freo. Saturday traffic at the bridges held them up and Roosveldt insisted on pulling into Captain Munchies beneath the shadows of the port’s cranes and eating two mayonnaise-slippery burgers while trains rumbled past the lot. Flanagan eyed the chips with a mild sense of unease between the salt cravings. In the end, he just sipped a canned Coke and smoked some more as he waited.

  “You’re not going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “Sorry,” Roosveldt said. “Boss’s orders.”

  “He ask you to pat me down?”

  The driver’s mouth slackened a moment in-between devouring chunks of gelatinous grey meat.

  “Should I?”

  “No. There’s nothing to worry about,” Flanagan said.

  “Jesus, don’t fool around, man.”

  “Am I going to see Allyson at the end of this little tour?”

  Roosveldt nodded, more interested in his food than deception, and for that reason if nothing else, Flanagan forced himself to relax. Although speculation ran rife as they crossed Fremantle and continued into the southern suburbs, up toward Coogee again, Flanagan and Peter barely exchanged another three words, lit cigarettes a more common commodity.

  The Alfa eventually turned away from the sea, negotiating the sloping streets behind Hamilton Hill like a high-speed vacuum cleaner keeping close to the sucking asphalt carpet. Between rampant development on the coast and a spreading mortgage belt in the suburbs further south, the area’s last half-dozen market gardens flourished beneath the weird sub-Mediterranean sun, rows of broccoli and tomatoes on the vine climbing the green slopes like a vegetable plague, order sorted through chaos by wooden stakes and ticker-tape. It was an impressive feat given it was the same terrain that had failed to enthral Western Australia’s first Dutch visitors, who gave settlement a pass.

  Peter turned the Alfa onto a crushed limestone track that wound between two properties. The chalk was airborne, the tail of a black BMW moving ahead of them like a ranger. A group of big corrugated sheds loomed out of a haze that was equal parts humidity, exhaust and dust. There were thirty cars parked with a number of people milling around. Flanagan relaxed his fists, pulled from one bizarre scenario into another equally strange, though for the moment it seemed safe enough.

  “What is this place?”

  The drive up to the open gates was lined with faded olive and eucalyptus trees, reducing the impact of the rusting grates, sun-damaged fertiliser signs, and warped wooden fences extending to the horizon. There were two sheds, one larger than the other, and the ruins of a Federation-era farmhouse. Genuine ye olde horse troughs fronted the veranda with room for the ice cart to turn, though now it was expensive cars filling the space instead. Flanagan could see from the first half-dozen people that they were well-dressed and moneyed-up, the women in expensive jewellery and designer clothes, some of the younger men only slightly less adorned, nonsensically fashionable haircuts visual non sequiturs on men who were obviously not models, though many of the women could’ve been.

  “It’s an old Italian place,” Roosveldt said at last. “Charlie owns it. He inherited it from his mum’s dad, a market gardener out here.”

  The car parked beside a glistening black 4WD and Flanagan and Peter sat still.

  “It seems too dry.”

  “That’s what I said,” Peter replied. “It’s seen better days.”

  The driver snapped the door open and Flanagan followed, lighting another cigarette to cover his unease. He saw a well-preserved man with lightened hair and a salon tan descend from a Pajero in the company of a stick-thin brunette hosting an indiscreet boob job, the couple holding hands like European royalty. Flanagan recognised him as a Perth millionaire jeweller, a younger version of his face once a frequent fixture on TV ads.

  “Why are we here, Peter?”

  Roosveldt glanced away apologetically. Several big men in black slacks and tight t-shirts with radio mikes beside their ears watched and guided the arrivals toward pens like the type for sorting cattle, but more newly built, a wooden ramp descending into the larger shed. The noise of a crowd and opening beer cans sounded from within.

  “This way,” Peter said.

  Flanagan winced and shook off the hand.

  “Fuck that. I’m gonna have a look around first.”

  “No tourists, Flanagan,” the other man said.

  He tried to put his hand on Flanagan’s arm again only to have it brushed away, a slight stumble turned into artful misdirection. Roosveldt was four paces away before he could right himself, eventually only managing to fall into step as Flanagan walked into the smaller of the sheds, now the venue’s bar.

  “OK, so someone’s having a party,” Flanagan mused half aloud. “Drinks, trophy wives, a few beers. What’s this, a horse race? Cock fight?”

  “Not exactly,” Roosveldt spluttered.

  Three more security toughs kept their eyes on the bar. Two dozen well-upholstered men and women were mingling before trestle tables manned by a pair of seedy-looking young blokes scrubbed up special for the day. One of them saw Roosveldt and cracked a gap-toothed grin. Suddenly there were two local beers complete with plastic cups on the table before them.

  “Cheers,” Flanagan said and took a drink.

&
nbsp; Roosveldt half-heartedly feigned resisting the booze before sinking half his can in a heartbeat. Flanagan contented himself looking around, Carlo nowhere in sight, eyes eventually settling on the huge frame of RJ pushing through a cluster of smart casuals around the doorway and heading straight for them.

  “Mr Franco said to see him right away, Prickles.”

  “Cunt walked off on me,” Peter replied.

  “It’s true,” Flanagan shrugged. “Have a beer.”

  RJ shook his freshly waxed head.

  “Finish up.”

  Flanagan did it reluctantly and fell into step with RJ and Roosveldt.

  “So what do they call you Prickles for?”

  “Don’t ask me.” Roosveldt flushed an unpleasant colour and stared off haggardly to one side.

  Flanagan shrugged. As they joined the slight queue for the stalls, he glanced around on tip-toes trying to catch a glimpse of the girl from his photo without luck. He’d gone to considerable lengths for the sake of helping a friend and assuaging a guilty conscience. If it was just for Teneille’s sake, he wondered why he bothered.

  It was dimmer inside the big shed, like one of the compounds from the Royal Show, but with naked bulbs overhead giving severity where otherwise shadows reigned. There was some tiered seating, no more than wooden bench seats, and then a slightly more elaborate area with plastic chairs and a long table covered in white tablecloths. Open dirt filled the space in-between. A muscular bogan in a Def Leppard t-shirt was doing leg squats in tight black jeans and desert boots.

  “What fucking gives?”

  “This way,” RJ answered.

  He opened one of the faded white wooden gates and led Flanagan and Roosveldt almost formally across the open dirt to another gate. The bleachers were half full and Flanagan looked up to see Carlo Franco descending awkwardly to meet them. Carlo wore tasteful black pants and an open-necked jacket that somehow made him look more like a down-and-out waiter than anything more flash, even with gold cufflinks and a crisply-ironed white shirt open with an Indian collar. The usual silverware and gold hung around his neck and sunglasses were pushed up into his thinning black hair.

  “Flanagan.”

  He offered several ring-encrusted fingers and Flanagan was too confused to offend him, so he exchanged the greeting and motioned around once his hand was free again.

  “This is a fighting tournament?”

  Carlo laughed. “It’s not the ultimate fucken warrior or anything, but yeah. It’s a little sport. Fight club, you know?”

  Up at the wedding table, the only man in actual formalwear chimed a tiny bell, drawing more than a hundred eager pairs of eyes. Flanagan recognised a failed West Australian actor and a former radio personality standing close by before he turned to the stage. Three men moved into seats behind the table and the announcer came up with a red-and-white loud hailer to address the crowd.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third West Australian Open Rules Tournament for this year. On behalf of our host, I’d like to welcome you and hope your glasses are charged before our first bout, which will start presently. The betting table will be open for five more minutes.”

  There was a muted cheer and some applause. The man with the klaxon grinned, still on stage.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said, something of the showman in his voice. “What is the first rule of fight club?”

  The crowd roared backs its response.

  “There is no fight club!”

  “And what is the second rule of fight club?”

  On the repeat, it was hard to believe there was only a hundred-or-so people present. Flanagan, normally unflappable, couldn’t help his mild astonishment.

  The gate opened amid further cheers and an Asian guy in jeans, work boots, and a sleeveless t-shirt walked out awestruck into the middle of the pen, followed by a member of one of Perth’s outlaw motorbike gangs. He was much bigger than his opponent, dressed in black jeans, biker boots and just his Woden’s Wolves vest that revealed a full shirt of tattoos. A bandana masked his face.

  Flanagan turned back to Carlo and RJ.

  “Is this for real?”

  “Oh, it fucken is,” Carlo grinned as the announcer started again.

  FIFTEEN

  THE ASIAN KID lasted into the third of the two-minute rounds before the biker finally got a hold on him. Big hands caught the young bloke’s ears and then it was head-butt central, the gangsta boy collapsing in a pile of blood and puke made worse for a few steel-capped kicks in the ribs before three of his buddies appeared to jump the fence and drag him out. The biker raised his hands in triumph, mask down and blood oozing slowly from one nostril. Flanagan watched as the cheers died and people made for one of the corners, two more security guards unarmed except for their menace watching over a table where men co-ordinated bets from a not-so portable-looking safe. The whole contraption was mounted on a metal trolley. Flanagan fancied he saw at least a hundred thousand dollars within.

  “This is your operation?” he asked Carlo.

  Carlo only grinned.

  “What do you think, Flanagan?” He gestured wide.

  “I think you must be paying someone to keep the fucking police away from here,” Flanagan replied. “Loose lips sink ships and all that.”

  “It’s not your problem.”

  “Problem? I’m not even interested.” Flanagan paused for effect and Carlo brought his amusement-glazed eyes back to attention.

  “I came here for Allyson. Where is she?”

  “Yeah, we had a chat,” Carlo said in an unworried tone. “She should be along soon.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said her parents were arseholes and you must be a private investigator,” Carlo replied. “Her old man always threatened to hire one if she ran away.”

  Flanagan laughed, though it was a grim, humourless sound.

  “Where is she?”

  “There’s time for that,” Carlo smiled. “I thought you might like the chance to show off those big sluggers of yours. You know, show us what a real man’s like. What do you say?”

  Flanagan glanced at the miniature stadium, the bell sounding again as the aerobics-keen bogan stepped over the low fence. The announcer’s chatter sounded in his ears, but Flanagan couldn’t take it in.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all,” Carlo said, chuckling and frowning like Flanagan had turned his nose up at the canapés. “You know your way around the other hardware. I thought you might have a thing or two to show us. What do you say, Mr Flanagan? Have a laugh? Hey, have a bet! You could make some real money, instead of whatever Allyson says her dad must be paying you.”

  “I told you I was a family friend,” Flanagan hissed. “I never said I knew the father.”

  “All the more reason to have a flutter. I’ll give you good odds. Five-to-one? Harold’s never actually killed anyone before. Can you say the same?”

  “I’m not doing it,” Flanagan said.

  Carlo shrugged.

  “You are.”

  Flanagan felt RJ’s looming presence as he slowly totalled up all the security he’d seen on Franco’s payroll. It was the old execution nightmare again, but with the fear of public failure thrown in for good measure. At least he wouldn’t be nude. Or back at school.

  “Come on. I’ll spot you a few hundred, what do you say? Give these people a show.”

  The other brawler walked into the middle of the rectangle and stood breathing like a sex pervert, eyes on Flanagan. He was a crazy-looking character, with enormously bouffant hair an 80s disaster, the rest of the ‘do bouncing stiff around his shoulders. Tattoos covered his heavily-muscled arms, though below the greying t-shirt, his blue jeans showed he’d skipped leg day a lot more times than he could count.

  Practically growling, Flanagan pulled eighteen-hundred dollars from his pocket and stuffed it into Carlo’s surprised paw.

  “Five-to-one,” he said.

  “If it doesn
’t offend you,” the gangster grinned.

  Flanagan removed his collared shirt and stepped bare-chested into the ring. He was already aware of the small crowd roaring approval. With that feeling of a nightmare threatening to drown him, he walked sideways, mapping the arena with his feet while clenching and unclenching his fists. His heart beat like an electrocuted turkey in his chest.

  The bell rang again.

  One hundred-and-ten kilos of heavy metal warrior threw itself at Flanagan like a zombie from a Romero remake, complete with snarls and dramatic head flicks. Flanagan slid his right foot away and turned side-on, a gentle forearm thrust pushing the attacker on with his own momentum.

  The other man barely caught himself from spinning out-of-control. As he came back, Flanagan blocked a grab at his face with a single forearm, reached across to catch the man’s second thrusting wrist and then pulled him across his own centre-of-balance, never letting go the trapped limb, twisting and pulling and stepping slowly along with the staggering bogan until the arm finally wrenched up behind his back with Flanagan running him at the pace of a runaway train, face-first into the wooden gate where Carlo, RJ and others stood watching. The bogan’s face made a sickening crunch and then he slumped to the ground, unconscious already and hardly feeling his chin catch on the next strut down before settling in the dirt.

  Clearly it wasn’t the dramatic conclusion most expected.

  “Fuck,” RJ’s voice carried loudly in the brief silence.

  The crowd only clapped politely, like they knew anything more would piss Carlo off. The Mafioso sat on his wooden high seat and shook his head, a black expression slowly giving way, DeNiro-like, to grudging mirth.

  “Well you got him fucken good, I can’t deny it.”

  He looked down suddenly at the money in his hand like someone had just done a shit in it. Flustered, he threw the notes at Peter Roosveldt.

  “Pay the man,” he barked. “Go on.”

  Peter’s puppy eyes went unnoticed by everyone except Flanagan as he crouched to collect the spilled money. Flanagan stepped over the fence and picked up his shirt from where he’d left it, the murmurs and mutters of the crowd returning to normal.