Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  ‘You might not live that long.’

  ‘That’s not real smart, Hogan.’

  ‘Don’t blame me. Blame your mate Heenan. Seems Larry Conlan is having a bit of an … episode. Likes the powder, does Larry. Explains his blowing up young Accardi. Usually it’s Dot’s hookers he takes it out on. Heard he gave Heenan a hard word. More than a hard word. More akin to a medieval torture session, is what I hear. Heenan told him that you’re looking into Larry and Maitland’s business affairs. Now, normally, that mightn’t –’

  Swann glanced at the smashed front door to Gould’s apartment. He wouldn’t hear them coming. ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘Well, in his current state of mind, given to … extreme gestures, apparently the Conlans have set the entire Junkyard Dog pack onto you. Ordered them to bring your head.’

  Swann hung up, rang directory, got the number for Dragic’s market garden. Dialled and waited. The phone picked up, but no words, the old man listening. Swann filled the space. ‘The man who killed your boy. He’s coming to visit you. An Englishman. He thinks you’ve got something of his. I told him you’d be expecting him.’

  A cough, clearing of throat, in the background, puppies whining. ‘That is good.’

  The line gone dead. Another call, this time to Norman Gorman at the switchboard. ‘Norman. I’ve been hearing things. Bad things. You?’

  Swann could imagine Norman’s face, the waxy skin and Somme-era moustache. Eyes that were blind, but had seen it all. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Frank. Out of control barely describes it. Well, you’ll see for yourself. I’m presuming you want a connection?’

  ‘I’m after Heenan.’

  ‘I haven’t heard the dulcet tones for nearly two days. But you can ask.’

  The connection was made, the line began to dial, the pick-up. ‘What?’

  Not Heenan, or the premier’s voice. Maitland Conlan. In the premier’s seat.

  ‘Conlan, this is Frank Swann. I want to speak to Heenan.’

  Conlan’s response a belly laugh, a slap on the leather blotter. ‘Heenan is helping us with our inquiries. As you will be soon. Some friends of mine are looking for you, mate.’

  So it was true.

  ‘Heenan had nothing to do with anything –’

  ‘Maybe not, but he’s got a big mouth, and big mouths need to be sewed shut.’

  ‘Too late for that, Conlan. I’ve got the Grednics’ car. All the papers Grednic was going to hand over to Grim Greylands, I’ve got them. I’m giving them to Ben Hogan.’

  ‘Name your price. I’m a businessman. You have goods to exchange; I’ll buy them.’

  Swann chose his words carefully, calmed his breathing, spoke quietly. ‘You tell the premier, if he calls the Burswood tender in your favour, he’s going to be in a world of political pain.’

  Conlan unaware his words were being taped.

  ‘What makes you think he has a choice?’

  Swann hung up, replaced the receiver with sweating hands, that floating sensation again. A final call to make. Asked directory for the Canberra number, Federal Police switchboard. Told the operator he wanted to speak to the policeman who’d received a letter bomb yesterday, heard the tension in her voice when she told him to wait. A long minute passed. Couple of clicks as the recorders activated. A deliberately modulated voice. ‘Johnson. How can I help.’

  ‘My name is Frank Swann. Terry Accardi was my friend. I was working for him in my capacity as a private investigator and ex-policeman –’

  ‘I know who you are. We did our background checks.’

  Swann wary. The leak to Conlan about Accardi’s investigation had come from the Feds, not the CIB.

  ‘That’s interesting; Terry told me he hadn’t mentioned my name. Was it you who leaked his name over here?’

  The response Swann wanted. Rush of blood. ‘You fucken … my life was threatened too.’

  ‘But your package was mysteriously intercepted, just in time.’

  ‘All incoming mail to this facility is scanned. The scan picked up the bomb. An emergency protocol was initiated. The bomb was defused.’

  The game gone long enough. Swann cut to it. ‘This is what’s going to happen. First, you stop recording this call, or I don’t proceed. Then I’ll tell you what I want from you …’

  Swann waited for the clicks. When they came he spoke, and Johnson listened.

  *

  The emperors with no clothes. Gould’s words, after a skim through the contents of the files. Maitland Conlan’s business empire was, as Grim Greylands suspected, essentially bankrupt. Most of his companies, including Exetar, were operating while insolvent. Whenever there was a sniff of rumour, or revelation from a disgruntled employee, Maitland’s brother Larry flooded the company with capital from Harrowgate Investment Bank. But Harrowgate too was bankrupt, according to Gould. Apart from Larry Conlan’s lavish lifestyle, he was borrowing heavily from some dubious sources, the regular overseas financial institutions having cut him off, demanding repayment at penalty interest rates, and all of the transactions and all of the threats were contained in Grednic’s files. Depositors to Conlan’s bank, which included the Catholic Church and several of the local councils and universities, the various local unions and superannuation trusts, were going to lose everything. Money entering the Harrowgate front door was going out the back door faster than ever. The Burswood development was an opportunity for the Conlans to plunder the public purse, refresh the coffers, keep the show rolling along. Until then, one push and their empire was going to fall over.

  Swann called ahead and parked in the street. Through the Statesman’s driver window he handed the first thousand dollars of Grednic’s cash to McIlroy, the Fremantle Prison guard, with instructions to get Gerry Tracker ready for extraction. The second bundle contained five thousand dollars for the screws at Longmore, to settle the Blake Tracker matter. McIlroy didn’t ask, patted Swann on the arm and let him go with a warning.

  ‘We had a dozen or so bikies in the street last night. No patches or rego plates. They charged your place. After they left I walked down there. Old Salvatore was cleaning up the damage. You’d best keep away, Frank.’

  Swann thanked him and reversed out of Nelson Street, took the shortest route to Coolbellup, air-conditioner blasting to keep him awake. During daylight hours, old man Pickett was likely asleep. Swann vaulted the front fence and walked down the back. Heat radiated from the cottage roof and walls, the asbestos box baking in the sun. Swann shuddered at the image of the old man inside, sweating through his dreams.

  He gave the knock on the weatherboard portal, waited for Foley, heard the scrabble of the limestone, a chink of dark. Foley ushered him inside, glanced around the yard, looked just as wired as Swann felt.

  Soon as Swann slid into the dugout, Foley presented him with a sheath of papers, fixed with a bulldog clip.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I robbed Harrowgate this morning. Got the bank manager to open Mostel’s safety deposit box. This was all there was.’

  ‘Nothing on the news about it.’

  Foley shrugged, pointed with his chin at the papers in Swann’s hand. Swann looked over the first sheet. The final piece of the jigsaw. Mostel’s insurance. Not only accounts and ledgers. The man had also written a story. Outlining in detail, in case of his death, exactly what he had done for the Conlans over the past year to keep them afloat. Obviously aware of the significance of his predecessor’s disappearance. The rewards he’d demanded – some of the small projects such as the Brewery development, some of the state energy infrastructure, a place at the trough. Swann flicked to the last page. The manuscript was even signed and dated, to two weeks ago. Ink fingerprinted. The final words of caution: dynamite in the wrong hands.

  Or the right hands.

  ‘I came here to destroy Mostel. Is that going to do it?’

  Swann nodded. ‘Well and truly.’

  ‘I can leave it up to you?’

  ‘One last thing.’


  Swann talked Foley through his plan. Told him about Conlan, about Mostel and Accardi. The final nail.

  Foley agreed, began to pack.

  *

  The Conlans lived on the fiftieth floor of the tower they’d built – Conlan Tower, the city’s tallest building. Swann parked in the underground carpark, walked towards the nearest lift, Foley a step behind with his motorcycle helmet on, holding a bag full of newspapers gathered off Coolbellup lawns; a fake courier.

  The mirrored lift rose, stopped to take on office types, drop them off. Swann not looking, eyes closed, just the smells of perfume and cologne, Foley’s unwashed body, the awkward atmosphere of lifts. Swann opened his eyes as they passed the thirtieth floor, counted the numbers until they reached 47, 48, 49, where the numbers stopped. Floor forty-nine was the offices of Maitland Conlan and Exetar. Maitland might even be there, along with Mostel. There was a private lift that went to the final floor. An electronic code needed. The lift doors opened and Swann stepped into the lobby beside Foley, still wearing the helmet. Behind cool glass walls were carpeted dividers separating workers in an open plan. Nobody noticed them. Swann watched the workers busy in their cubicles while Foley cased the ceiling, the painted cement sheets laid on steel frames, air-conditioning vents every twenty metres. Beyond, the view of the river snaking upstream towards the hills, haze of a bushfire burning to the south. No sign of panic or anything untoward. Jamming the lift and going up through the lift roof into the shaft was one option, but Foley’s least preferred. Swann followed him around the curved, painted wall towards the toilets. Inside, they took adjoining stalls. Swann left his door unlocked, sat on the toilet cover with his throwaway pistol on safety. Listened while Foley climbed over the cistern and onto the stall walls and pushed up a concrete sheet at the edges. It looked heavy. He propped the sheet with the motorcycle helmet, hoisted himself up and into the roof-space. Swann left his stall and sat in Foley’s place, climbed the cistern and slipped the sheet back into its snug.

  Foley returned after five minutes, knocked on the ceiling. Swann lifted the ceiling-tile up with the helmet.

  ‘There’s a guard stationed outside the lift. Looks like a Junkyard heavy. Fucking hand-cannon on him. Lift opens onto a room, goes two ways, one to each brother’s apartment. Nothing going on one side, hardly looks used. The other side … fucking Mostel’s there, tied to a chair. Next to him’s the fat man I saw him with last week. Both look pretty bashed up. Mostel saw me, I think. The other bloke was out cold, or sleeping.’

  Swann heard the door, let the tile down, crouched while a man pissed in little constricted tinkles, whistled ‘Islands in the Stream’. He took his time washing his hands: water, soap, rinse, towel, deep sigh upon departure – the whole ritual, which gave Swann time to think. He lifted the tile. ‘Mostel will know the code to the lift. Get it out of him.’

  Swann waited, the chill air in the toilet freezing the acid sweat down his back, little trills of anxiety rising up his neck, pricking his scalp. Foley back in twenty minutes, the knock. ‘Fucking comedians. The code is one billion, in numbers.’

  ‘You wait by one of the doors. You hear the lift open, you come from behind. You armed?’

  Foley nodded over his back; the black nylon shoulder bag. ‘Gotta sawn-off rifle, offa the Junkyard bastard tried to kill me. Give me two to get in place. Something goes wrong; you hear a gunshot, you get your arse up fast.’

  Swann left the stall, then the bathroom, carried Foley’s helmet under one arm, walked to the private lift, glanced down the corridor either side. Pressed the button, the door gliding back. Ordinary vestibule with dark mirrors wrapped around. He closed the door, waited two minutes and punched the numbers, took a deep breath, clicked the safety catch on the Beretta .22 and put the helmet at his feet, stood side-on, gun-hand extended. One floor, seemed an eternity. An eternity for the door to tremble, begin its soundless slide. Nothing in front of him. Then the shadow of a giant magnum revolver turning on a slow arc, Swann turning at the same time, raising his arm while the giant bear of a man lowered his own, eyes meeting, snap of recognition, the man beginning to smile. The .22 aimed at the bikie’s face, the magnum aimed at his own. Swann’s might kill, more likely wound. The magnum would take Swann’s head off. He backed into the lift, forced the man to follow round, left his back exposed. Foley moving on silent feet, a silent charge, the rifle butt raised above kamikaze eyes and mouth open in a silent shriek, caught the bearman behind the ear, the force of the blow carrying him into the lift, taking out Swann’s legs, slamming him into a wall of shattering glass.

  No gunshot.

  Foley smashed the bikie’s head a second, third time. Took the magnum revolver and uncocked the hammer. ‘That was lucky. You wouldn’t believe it, these things have a fucken hair trigger.’

  ‘You did good. He was out before he hit me.’

  They dragged him into the anteroom, into Larry Conlan’s apartment, spots and smears of blood over the camel-coloured carpet. One big room: messed up circular bed against one wall, large dining table. Cocaine on the dining table, on a mirror spotted with blood drops containing powder. Someone going hard, most likely Larry Conlan, given his alleged mental state. In the wall-to-wall mirrored bathroom, beside the jacuzzi and bound to two dining chairs, were Mostel and Heenan, the latter still unconscious, gurgling, head sagging at a bad angle. Mostel’s face all pulp, the weapon on the vanity beside: a gold-plated hairbrush.

  Foley didn’t waste any time. He grabbed Mostel by the hair. ‘The safe. Where is it and what’s the combination?’

  There was still fight left in Mostel. Tried to laugh, coughed and spat blood instead, panic in his eyes. Foley wiped blood from Mostel’s chin on his hand, held it up. ‘They sure did a number on you. See that frothy blood. That’s an embolism. You’ve got a collapsed lung. Now, where’s the safe and what’s the combination?’

  Mostel began to cough, fear in his eyes, could feel himself rupturing inside. Bent forward and let the stream of blood and saliva run from his mouth. Shook his head.

  ‘What’s that mean? You won’t tell?’ Foley raised the rifle. Swann put a hand on his arm. ‘I think it means there’s no safe. Have a look.’

  Foley went out while Swann untied Mostel’s hands, moved to Heenan, coming round. Swann finished the job with a glassful of water on the face. Heenan came to the surface from a great depth. Instant recognition, straining at his bonds. His wounds superficial, but it was his first beating. Ears would be ringing, concussion vertigo making him dizzy, the terrible nausea. Swann helped him to his feet, guided him out of the room, sat him on Conlan’s bed. Moment of panic. The bikie was gone. Swann ran to the hall to see the lift-light blink off. Turned to see Mostel stagger towards him, pink blood gushing out his mouth, bank left towards the balcony, disoriented and oxygen-starved.

  ‘No you fucken don’t!’ shouted Foley, turning from the cupboards pulled open; Swann recognising the garbage bag he’d filled with Conlan’s cash, stowed beside the tycoon’s shoes. He followed Foley to the balcony, watched Mostel swing a leg over, no idea what he was doing, then gone into the whistling wind. Nothing but the view to the hills. Mostel on his way, fifty storeys down.

  ‘Good fucken riddance,’ said Foley, who wanted to watch the fall.

  Swann grabbed his arm, pulled him back. Moved to Heenan, helped him towards the lift. Foley stuffing the half a million cash into a canvas laundry bag, arrived just as the lift door slid open. They got inside, Swann punched the numbers. The floor below, people milling around, the bloodied bikie gone. The next lift, the forty-nine-storey descent, Foley with his helmet back on, only Heenan drawing attention, face swelling badly. In the underground carpark, Swann shook Foley’s hand. Foley reached into the canvas bag and pressed a fat wedge of money into Swann’s jacket. No words needed. Never met, never to meet again.

  Heenan staggered towards the car but Swann blocked him. ‘You’re safer on your own, Heenan. Get yourself to the RPH, then lie low. I’ll be in touch.’


  Swann reversed the Statesman, put his foot down and punched the Holden towards the block of white light.

  *

  The traffic on St Georges Terrace had the Statesman locked in, creeping forward, little jerks and starts, the lights changing slowly. Swann felt vulnerable; not tying the bikie down had been his sole mistake. Now he was propped like a target in the best environment possible for a bikie with a gun. Just in case he didn’t make it, he called Gould in Subiaco, where he was headed.

  ‘Everything useful, make multiple copies. In the event of …’

  Light-headed, surreal, in the event of sounding like the certain pronouncement of his own death. For once, Gould kept his mouth shut, did as he was told, could feel Swann’s fear down the line. Next, a final good deed before he called Marion, he dialled Stormie Farrell, to get the word out to all the unions, to get their money out of Harrowgate. Stormie Farrell’s word was gold, Swann’s conduit to a panic that would spread from the unions to the councils to the general public. There was no answer, the phone ringing out. In his rear-vision Swann saw the first bike, a black bobbing helmet, visor down, weaving into a position three cars back, and Swann understood. There was no way to communicate to the Junkyard Dogs that Conlan was broke, no cash left to pay them for their paramilitary duties. He shanked the steering wheel when he saw the bikie reach into his side-saddle, still stationary, so he cut down a lane through a red light and took the freeway south, the Statesman eating up the road and hitting 100, 120, 140, weaving between the commuters and taxis and buses, heard the throaty roar; jet engine clearing its throat, watched the bike come up the emergency lane, Swann cutting in front, two parallel lines intersecting at speed, except that the bike swerved, came around Swann from the outside, no gun in the driver’s hand or look as he passed but accelerated ahead; one hundred metres, two hundred, sat there and waited. Swann heard another bike come from behind, another Harley at its maximum speed, single rider coming on his right side, Swann looking for the weapon but the bike pulling into the farthest right lane, pulled further ahead and sat there, waiting.