‘How can I help? Are you the man who called yesterday, complaining about allegedly toxic dust on your tomato crop? If so, I apologise – I was out of the … office.’
Said with a deal of charm, the mockery implicit. Swann heard the clump of boots, felt the presence of a large mammal at his shoulder. The mammal waited for a signal from Quinlivan, whose eyes were bright with good humour.
‘Quit the smart-arse act, smart-arse. And tell your mate here to visit the vet, get his teeth cleaned.’
Quinlivan nodded. ‘Very well … Swann, isn’t it? What do you want? You can see I’m busy.’
‘I need a list of all your employees, past and current. And I need to know your whereabouts these past years.’
Quinlivan laughed. ‘Very well, Mr Swann. Although, whether I can be bothered reaching over to that filing cabinet depends upon your having a warrant.’
‘I’m employed by the premier’s office. I can have a subpoena here within the hour, although I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I’m sure the management of Exetar will want to know that you’ve been helpful. This is about their tender for the Burswood job.’
‘Well, in that case …’
Quinlivan pushed his chair, the casters rolling towards a filing cabinet in the corner. Without getting up he reached into the second drawer and pulled a file, slid back to his desk, handed it over.
‘I’ll need that back – it’s my only copy.’
‘You don’t keep copies at head office?’
Quinlivan smiled. ‘This is head office. We like to keep overheads low. Key to survival in a tough market.’
‘Always a market for apes with truncheons. I look in this file, I’m not going to find men with criminal records for violence and theft, am I?’
‘God forbid.’
‘How did a half-arsed operation like this get in with a Conlan corporation?’
‘There were building site thefts, damage to expensive materials, equipment, ongoing. The last operation couldn’t control the situation. We’ve remedied that.’
‘Bit of the old create the problem, fix the problem, eh? And you, how did you get involved?’
Quinlivan leaned back on his chair, which creaked, ran his fingers down his braces. ‘You mean, where have I been these past years, when everyone thought I was dead? I was questioned about the double-murder you’re familiar with, and released. I chose to leave the country. I’ve been in London, working as an analyst and consultant to various broking firms, specialising in Australian stocks. And before you ask – I’ve come home because of the same opportunities – to get in on the ground level of what’s looking like a very promising –’
‘And you couldn’t get any more level with the ground than a building site office stiff. You’re the manager – where can I find the company owner? Who I’ve been told is a Mr … Calhoun.’
‘Ah, Mr Calhoun. He’s on an extended holiday, I believe. If you leave me your details –’
‘I’ll find him myself, thanks.’
Swann stepped back into the midriff of the goon, let his elbow and shoulder turn with the contact. Heard a little grunt and looked into the eyes of a ginger-bearded thug with broken capillaries over his sunburnt face. Not a face he knew, beyond a faint resemblance. Swann tucked the file under his arm, leant further into the man and cleared his way to the door.
*
He drove out of the city across the Causeway into Victoria Park, weaving among the trucks carrying contaminated dirt out of the city. He flipped through Quinlivan’s file as he drove, single sheets held up against the steering wheel, a cigarette burning at his lips. A Who’s Who of local lowlife – rejects from the bikie clubs, thugs from the fishing fleets working the off-season, wannabe gangsters from the suburbs, and washed-up boxers and bouncers from the local circuit. Nobody too heavy, but Swann guessed most of them were in the wrong game – security staff weren’t allowed to work with a criminal record. Only problem was the time it’d take to follow up. And another anomaly – most of the employees had signed on as recently as a month ago – although the security firm had worked the East Perth job for nearly six months. A big clean-out, or a big takeover – Swann would have to investigate which. He needed to find the founder of the agency, Calhoun.
If the other tenders were like this – Swann was looking at months of work, when he only had weeks. But first to put a full stop after the experience of babysitting Stormie Farrell. The street was quiet except for the gentle whispers in the casuarina trees, at least until he got to Farrell Snr’s house. He parked at the foot of the drive and could see Stormie and Janey outside in the Thunderbird, the stereo playing rockabilly – Wanda Jackson’s ‘Funnel of Love’. It looked like Janey was painting Stormie’s toes with nail polish, a goon of wine propped on the dash, sunglasses on – the two of them on an imaginary road trip, singing and giggling. Janey had been Marion’s first suggestion as carer, and at first he’d laughed it off. An ex-prostitute looking after the premier’s father didn’t sound like the kind of arrangement that’d work for Heenan, despite her interest in nursing. A couple of months looking after an old man had sounded good to her, though, living in and making sure he ate, washed, cut down on the booze.
Swann didn’t get out of the car. Now Janey was up on her seat dancing, her glad rags catching the setting sun. Stormie Farrell with one hand on the steering wheel, the other arm hanging loose outside the car, tapping rhythm on the driver’s door, living out his rock-and-roll fantasy of a couple of kids on the road.
27.
A few houses from the derelict fibro shack, Des Foley killed the ignition of the Kawasaki, walked the bike along the edge of the house where he laid it on the concrete pavers in the backyard. He removed the sawn-off .303 and wiped the bike down then covered it with a plastic tarp. It was hot in the man’s leathers, and he unzipped the jacket and found a place for the rifle in his backpack and started the hike over to Gerry Tracker’s place. The night was cooling fast; the southerly scouring the empty streets, the smell of rissoles and prawns, cheap sausages and cabbage wafting from the quiet workers cottages. He rounded the corner of Tracker’s street, keeping to the mound of verge rubbish – whitegoods, blocks of limestone and wheelbarrows, and bikes overgrown with weeds. He crouched and scoped the flat length of street, a gesture that was routine now, but he got a shock at the sight of the divvy van next to Gerry’s Datsun truck. Its lights were cut but he saw a red point of fire that faded in the shadows, came back again as the smoker inhaled and exhaled, observing the Tracker house. Foley backtracked according to his routine and surveyed the dirt alley that backed onto the rear of each of the houses. The alley was strewn with fallen branches and homemade BMX ramps and jarrah offcuts, and under the moonlight he could see that it was empty.
Foley couldn’t have been followed, because the divvy van was already there. It couldn’t be a trap for him, either, because then the van would be hidden – the coppers would use unmarkeds. If they genuinely believed Des Foley was in the neighbourhood the place would be crawling with pigs – choppers would be overhead, the street would be burning with arc lights, the neighbours would be gathered outside a safe perimeter for when the shooting started.
It had to be the same coppers who’d come looking for the kid, one man outside and another tossing Gerry’s house, yet again. The situation wasn’t good, not for Foley. Too much heat. Too many things wrong. He thought of returning to the empty fibro house to sleep, but didn’t know the neighbours, couldn’t risk being observed breaking into the boarded-up building. Foley crept along the rusted tin and asbestos sheeting that made the back fences of the houses, listening for dogs, watching for torchlight. If he was careful, he’d be able to enter old man Pickett’s yard and creep under his house. The media ban on reporting his presence in the city would be over soon, and then the coppers would be forced to look everywhere – abandoned houses, parks, swamps, the homes of former associates. The size of the reward for information leading to an arrest was significant enough to make even fri
ends consider turning him in. Foley didn’t know old man Pickett, but Gerry Tracker trusted him, and he was safe for now.
Foley entered Pickett’s yard by prising back a sheet of tin, stepping into the dirt. He was halfway to the weatherboards when the shouting started next door. Gerry Tracker’s voice, a couple of hard calls of defiance and then the sound of fists hitting meat, men banging into walls, plasterboard and glass breaking, the front door slamming and then the sound of truncheons on bone. Foley felt his fists tighten, thought of the armoury in his bag, dismissed the thought. Gerry wouldn’t want that. He was protecting his boy. The thought of the kid brought Foley round. He saw the weatherboard sheet loosen, watched the kid clamber through, the .38 revolver in his hand. Foley got to him in a second, put a hand over his mouth and a lock on his gun hand, smothered him into the dirt, laid on top of him, held him there.
The sound of their breathing. A light above them. The shadow of old man Pickett cradling his .303, cast across the yard. The doors to the divvy van slammed, engine started, drove away.
The kid had tears in his eyes, his limbs trembling with adrenalin, unrealised violence. When his breathing settled Foley took the hand off his mouth – pointed to the entrance to the cave, their haven.
The boy nodded, gave up the gun.
28.
Swann sat across from Dennis Gould. The radio was off, but the words hung in the air, made the stuffy room even hotter. Swann knew from years of experience that stories of violence made Gould want to reach for the bottle. Sixty hours sober was easy, locked in his room. Swann’s mistake had been to turn on the radio.
The leading story on the nine o’clock news described a near-naked man, shot three times in the chest and stomach, crawling out of the bush onto Riverside Drive, nearly run over by the driver who swerved, stopped, called an ambulance.
The man was at Charles Gairdner Hospital in a critical condition, sepsis in his blood, not expected to live. Had been identified by his tattoos as a member of the Junkyard Dogs Motorcycle Club. The club president, as always, was saying nothing.
‘Chalk that one to Des Foley. The section of Riverside Drive the bikie crawled onto was near Mostel’s apartment.’
No response from Gould, whose eyes were elsewhere, hands stuffed into his pockets – no drink to reach for. It was Junkyard Dogs bikies who’d made Gould dig his own grave, but it was the second story that’d spooked him. Swann described how, an hour ago, the site manager of Exetar’s East Perth development had received a phone call, the voice on the line suggesting that he look out his front window. The manager thought it was a prank until his Mercedes W201 lifted off the ground on a cushion of fire that blew out his front windows and tore all the leaves off his trees and incinerated his cat asleep on the porch. The manager was also in Charlie Gairdner hospital in a critical condition. The shock wave from the explosion had caused haemorrhaging of internal organs, his skin shredded with glass darts. A call by Swann to Terry Accardi had gleaned this information and the fact that the site manager couldn’t explain the bombing. No warnings had been given. Accardi believed him.
‘You’d have to say that Exetar’s looking shaky.’ Gould’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘Your copper mate Accardi should be pleased. An American construction manager having his car blown up, ostensibly for no reason, it’s got to point towards crime gangs working inside the company, eating into the company from the bottom tier. If the message wasn’t intended for the site manager, then it has to be for Maitland Conlan.’
Swann looked at his hands, felt the urge to drink too. Lit a cigarette instead, mulling over Gould’s comment. ‘Not to mention Gary Quinlivan. His presence on the building site also legitimates our interest in Exetar.’
‘Not the usual front for money laundering, a company the size of Exetar. What exactly is Accardi looking at?’
‘Material for some future royal commission. Organised crime, police and political corruption.’
‘The tender then.’
‘Possibly. Although he couldn’t have predicted the election result, or the premier’s rush to development.’
Swann stubbed out his cigarette, looked into the ashtray.
Dennis Gould had made calls to London, confirming Gary Quinlivan’s employment as an analyst and broker of Australian stock, particularly mining stock. What Quinlivan hadn’t revealed to Swann was his success. They were only rumours, but Gould was told by British friends in broking and banking that Quinlivan was now a very rich man. He had a part-share in a Namibian diamond enterprise that was drawing the attention of De Beers; he had several Swiss bank accounts, as well as recorded multiple daily share transactions of major quantities of stock going back years – he seemed to have the knack for riding the wave before it broke.
Not bad for an ex-junkie, bank robber and dealer from the world’s remotest city. Quinlivan knew intimate details about Benjamin Hogan’s criminal enterprises, and the minor business empires of Leo Ajello and Tommaso Adamo, each of whom he had outgrown financially. Swann doubted however that Quinlivan was free of them. For whatever reason, Hogan had allowed Quinlivan to live, despite his knowing too much about Hogan’s scams and killings. Hogan was not a man known for clemency. That he had let Quinlivan go to prosper overseas suggested something else. Hogan still owned Quinlivan, and perhaps more. He needed to clean his money. There was only so much wealth Hogan could openly claim, as a chief of detectives; only so much wealth he could put in his wife’s and his children’s names.
Swann wondered. He saw Gould looking at him. ‘You said Quinlivan claimed he’d returned to get early access, get in on the ground floor. He’s just the kind of smart prick to tell the truth in your face, assuming you’ll read it as lies. I think he’s telling the truth.’
Swann nodded. ‘I think you’re right. We’ve got bipartisan support for state progress, foot-to-the-floor development. Quinlivan knows diamonds and gold, but that’s all buy and sell. The way the mining boom’s shaping up, the real money’s going to be in construction. The whole North-West is going to open up. Iron ore. Rail and roads, towns. Service industries. Airlines. But mainly construction. They’re talking billions of dollars of projects. The Japanese can’t get enough. And now they’re talking about China opening up to the West, building for the future. They’re going to need steel. They’re going to need iron.’
‘So you think guys like Ajello, Adamo, Hogan – they’re going legit?’
‘In a sense. But they’re all used to high-profit deals. Big drug mark-ups. There’s more money in legitimate business over the longer term, but what they’re after is the cream that’s added to every construction deal. Higher tenders. Cost blowouts. Government subsidies.’
‘And that’s what he meant about getting in on the ground floor,’ Gould said.
‘Exactly. The process of awarding business contracts. That’s where the cream comes from. The potentially huge profit. Corruption of process, or simple standover. Bribery or bashing. The lessons of the street carried into the boardrooms, into parliament. Because the government of the day gets some of that cream returned as legitimate political donation.’ Swann lit a cigarette, couldn’t help it any longer, pulled out the half-bottle of brandy in his jacket pocket, took a swig and passed it to Gould.
Gould drank, and wiped brandy from his three-day growth, flecks of ginger in the lamplight, eyes black and exhausted. ‘Hogan’s always been a close mate of the Conlan brothers, from back when they fixed races. Why is he trying to destabilise Exetar, by way of Quinlivan, when it’s the premier’s preferred tender?’
Gould passed the brandy back, his eyes following the bottle. Swann nodded that he should keep it. ‘The Conlans got to where they are by looking after their mates. Now they’ve risen so high, perhaps they’ve forgotten that.’
Gould took another swig, the bottle nearly empty. He toasted, and necked the rest, eyes watering. ‘There I was, sitting on the beach in South Australia, complaining about boiled fish.’
29.
Des Foley always k
new there was something wrong. ‘You’re different, not wrong,’ his mother always said, but Des knew. Fearless, and insensitive to pain. The sight of blood and someone else’s agony moved him not at all. The worst he felt was nausea, in his guts and behind his eyes, but only when the tears started. It wasn’t communion with another’s suffering, just a kind of disgust.
Des Foley put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, but it gave him the creeps. The kid sat in the dirt and wrapped himself up with his arms. His smell was strong, like hot smoke. His long hair fell over his face. There were wounds on his arm where he’d gouged himself, long stripes of red that resembled raindrops of blood, red barbed wire, when he’d thought that Foley was asleep.
Des Foley had snatched the blade and put it beneath his pillow. He put his hand out for the boy’s gun, which the kid handed over. Spoke for the first time since the coppers had dragged his father away. ‘You can fucken ’ave it. Brought me nothin’ but trouble.’
‘How’s that?’ Foley asked.
The boy told the story of beating up the detective sergeant and stealing his gun. Foley wanted to whoop with laughter, congratulate the kid, but thought of his friend Gerry Tracker. What being a father must be like – feeling one thing and saying another, lying to your children from day one, lying about who you really were and who they were likely to become.
‘They’re gonna charge him with somethin’, aren’t they?’
‘For sure. But he didn’t give you up.’
The tears started again. Foley saw that he’d been too honest, tried to soften his voice. ‘Cuttin’ yourself isn’t gonna help. Your dad wouldn’t want that.’
‘You know it and I know it – I ain’t worth the trouble.’
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