by Peter Temple
I didn’t like the feel of that story, the distance it placed between Mr Justice Loder and Robbie.
Musing in the claw-footed bath, a bath big enough for two, if they arranged themselves.
I dismissed that memory, rose and donned un-ironed but clean garments and began the preparation of a modest meal.
I drank some red wine, moved roughly chopped onion around for a while, kept away from the hot spot that the famous and expensive French frying pan wasn’t supposed to have. The French are the finest conpeople in the world. I added garlic and mushrooms, a tin of tomatoes.
The video. Delivered by hand by men in an expensive car. Undercover cops? I switched off the gas, took my glass to the sitting room and plugged in the cassette, went to the couch and used the remote. The video flickered briefly, began.
A young man got out of a cab. This would be Robbie Colburne. He was tall and slim and, from on high and zooming in and out on him, the camera caught a certain athletic insouciance: chin up, arms moving freely, first two fingers extended pistol-like. It was night but made day by spotlights recessed into the building on his left. Light gleamed on his cheekbones, on his straight black hair combed back. He was handsome, all in black, a jacket worn over a tee-shirt.
The camera followed him to where he disappeared beneath a cantilevered porch bearing the name of the building, incised in polished concrete: CATHEXIS.
Daylight this time, someone sitting at a table on the pavement from across a busy street, traffic blocking vision for seconds at a time. Then a new camera angle, nothing obscuring the man now but the camera unsteady. He had a small glass on a saucer, the shortest of short blacks, drank a teaspoonful, looked around, newspaper in his hand, a half-amused look. He was dark, balding, a fleshy intimidating face.
Early evening, the young man again, Robbie, seen in profile, side-on, waiting to cross a busy street, finding a break in the traffic, walking diagonally, the confident walk.
Night again. A long shot in bad conditions, rain, a car window coming down, the camera zooming in, the young man behind the wheel, in a dinner suit now, white shirt, black bow tie, saying a few words to someone outside the vehicle.
End of moving pictures.
I’d asked Warren Bowman for a photograph of Robbie.
I’d expected a still, a mortuary picture. Instead, he sent me a collection of surveillance video clips showing Robbie under expensive observation, moving, in the street. Good of him but why? I could ask Detective Sergeant Bowman. But he would probably say that he was just being helpful.
And why did a casual barman like Robbie deserve this kind of photographic attention? Was it because he wasn’t just a barman, as my anonymous caller had suggested?
Warren Bowman said senior drug squad officers were on the scene quickly after the uniformed cops reported finding Robbie’s body.
Expensive surveillance, two cameras on one occasion. That only happened to persons of great interest. Unless Robbie was an accidental, someone filmed in the surveillance of someone else. But, in that case, he would be someone close to the target; there was no other way he would be caught on camera so many times.
Robbie caught up in the surveillance of someone else. Was that it? The fleshy man?
Back to cooking. Time to add the tuna, get the rice going.
I was eating in front of the television when the phone rang. Cam.
‘Little trip in the morning,’ he said. ‘Won’t take long.’
‘I got talkin to the bloke at the hotel next door,’ Cam said. He wound down his window, flicked his cigarette end out, raised the window. We were in the V-8, passing the Fawkner Crematorium on the Hume, a sunny morning, petrol tanker ahead, Kenworth behind, stream of heavy metal coming the other way.
‘What’s the connection?’
‘Hotel’s part-owner of the carpark. Guest parkin. Carpark employs three blokes on eight-hour shifts, hotel provides security. In theory. This fella, he worked there eighteen months.’
‘The name again?’
‘Rick Chaffee. Two complaints about extra Ks appearin on the clock while he was there. One bloke from Adelaide had a logbook, he reckoned someone took his Discovery for a 200K spin.’
Cam edged out for a look, came back in. He was wearing Western District casual attire today, navyblue brushed-cotton shirt, heavy moleskin trousers, short riding boots. ‘On the day, this Chaffee, his story is he was on the phone, he thought he recognised the driver of the Land Cruiser, let him out without checkin ID. Honest mistake.’
‘They buy that?’
Cam shrugged. ‘What can you prove? Sacked him. Cops run the tape over him, the hotel bloke says. No form to speak of, some kid stuff in WA, he’s a WA boy, Mangoup, Banjoup, one of those up towns, they got hundreds. Plus he’s got an assault when he was a bouncer in King Street.’
He was steering with his fingertips, head back, index fingers tapping to the music, soft Harry Connick. ‘Worth a yarn, I reckon.’
‘If the bloke’s in this,’ I said, ‘it’ll take more than a yarn.’
Cam’s dark eyes lay on me for a moment.
I went back to reading the Age. The story at the bottom of page one was headlined: Call for Cannon Ridge tender probe.
It opened: The State Government was last night urged to hold an inquiry into the tendering process that awarded a 100-year lease on the Cannon Ridge snowfield and a mini-casino licence to a company associated with Melbourne’s millionaire Cundall family.
The company, Anaxan Holdings, has a glittering list of shareholders, including some of Australia’s Top 100 richest. A spokesman for shortlisted rival bidder WRG Resorts told a press conference yesterday that WRG has evidence that Anaxan knew details of all tenders before the vital second round of bidding.
The Minister for Development, Tony DiAmato, said WRG Resorts had not approached him. ‘I have no idea what they’re talking about. The previous government awarded this tender. We fought the whole idea of a private snowfield and another casino, everyone knows that. But it’s done, it’s history.’
Cam said, ‘I read that stuff you sent me. The Saint’s big with your crim tatt artist.’
I folded the paper. ‘That’s what my bloke said. Use half the phone book.’
I’d sent him the yellow A4 envelope left for me at Meaker’s, sent it by express courier, fat and silent Mr Cripps behind the wheel of his burnished 1976 Holden.
‘It’s down here,’ said Cam.
We turned right off the Hume, drove through a light industrial area, bricks, concrete products, pipes, turned left and went a long way, to the end of an unpaved road. Ahead, a sign on a wavy corrugated-iron fence was falling over. It said, no punctuation, Denver Garden & Building Supplies Plants Sand Soil Gravel Pavers Sleepers. The gate was half-open, drawn back until its sagging tip dug into the ground.
Cam nosed around it, parked in front of a long cement-sheet building, flat-roofed, meagre shelter over the door, one small window. Beside the door, three bags of cement had solidified, fused. We got out.
To the left of the gate was what remained of the Plants division of the business: a copse of birch trees in black plastic root bags, leaning inward, touching, dead; a conifer fallen over but indomitable, roots broken through the seams of the plastic bag and penetrating the packed soil; a row of concrete pots growing couch grass in abundance; some sad roses clinging to life, sparse leaves spotted with yellow.
The sound of a machine came from beyond the building. We walked around, passed an old pale-blue Valiant, buffed up, saw an expanse of dark, wet, rutted ground, big concrete pens holding gravel and sand, mulch, compost, other dark substances, everything untidy, spilling out of the enclosures, crushed into the ground.
The machine was a mid-sized lifter and it was moving rocks from one part of the yard to another, television-sized rocks for adding character to small, flat blocks in the outer suburbs.
We walked towards it and the driver saw us coming, the light glinted on his dark glasses as he looked our way, kept on goin
g to his new pile, dumped the load with a crash, reversed the machine, gunned it back to the mother lode, took the bucket down, stuck it in with a ghastly screech, lifted, rocks falling out, swung around, went back, lifted the bucket to dump.
We were close, in the noise. The man turned his head towards us. Cam raised a hand, palm outward.
Bucket poised, the man cut the motor. He was big, no neck or chin to speak of, peaked cap too small for his long hair, tiny nose, arms like sewer pipes, belly hanging over a wide leather belt.
‘Yah?’
‘Rick Chaffee,’ said Cam. It wasn’t a question.
‘Want somethin?’ The man’s voice was reedy, not congruous with the body.
‘Few words about the parking garage.’
‘What?’
‘Curtin parking garage. You worked there.’
‘Jacks?’
‘No.’
‘I’m workin here,’ the man said. ‘Busy.’
‘Be a good idea to talk to us,’ Cam said.
‘Yah. Why’s that?’
‘You could be in trouble.’
Chaffee shook his head. ‘Not cops?’
‘No.’
He swivelled in his seat, stood up on the platform of the machine, towered over us, our heads at his knee-level. ‘What’s your name?’ he said to Cam.
‘Bruce,’ said Cam.
Chaffee drew on his sinuses, not an engaging sound, and spat to Cam’s right.
‘Bruce’s not a coon name,’ Chaffee said. ‘You look like you got a bit of coon in you.’
Cam turned his head to me, eyes full of resignation. ‘Far as I’m concerned,’ he said quietly, ‘you stayed in the car.’
‘We should leave,’ I said, more than uneasy, much, much more. ‘There are other ways.’
‘Won’t take long,’ Cam said. ‘Since we’re here.’
He turned back to Chaffee. ‘All I want to do is ask you about the Curtin carpark.’ Pause. ‘Mr Chaffee.’
Chaffee put a hand into an armpit, scratched. ‘Busy, boong, fuck off.’
Cam looked down, shook his head, coiled, sprang, hooked his right arm around Chaffee’s knees, pulled the big man out of the machine with one twisting movement, brought him over his head and dumped him.
Chaffee made a sound like a kicked dog as he hit the wet ground. He rolled over, balled himself, he was no stranger to being kicked, would try to grab the foot, the leg.
Cam stood back. ‘Get up, Ricko,’ he said, ordinary tone. ‘I’m in a good mood.’
Chaffee got up, wary of a surprise, but when he was on his feet, I could see he liked this turn of events. ‘Hey,’ he said, taking off the dark glasses, throwing them to one side, his eyes flicking to me. ‘Hey, no reason to fucken do that, really fucken stupid. Fucken boong stupid.’
Cam took a step closer, inside the range of the big arms, his hands at shoulder height, loose fists. He was as tall as Chaffee but 20 kilograms lighter. Chaffee put his head to one side.
‘Cocky fucken boong,’ he said, then grabbed at Cam’s shirtfront, lunging, forehead dropped for the butt.
Cam went forward, into the lunge, his right hand travelled upward no more than 10 centimetres, a corkscrewing fist that made contact with Chaffee’s nose, brought the man’s head up, opened his eyes wide with pain, his arms falling to his sides, cap falling off.
Cam took another pace, in close, hit him again, the same short, twisting punch, this time high in Chaffee’s chest, in the left collarbone. I thought I heard it break.
Chaffee went down, on one knee, both hands at his nose, blood running through his fingers. Cam put his hand in the man’s hair, pulled him forward, dragged him across the muddy, rutted ground, Chaffee moaning, not resisting.
‘Open the car door, Jack,’ said Cam, nothing different about his voice. ‘Wind the window down. Take the keys out.’
I opened the driver’s door of the Valiant, did as I was told. Cam pulled Chaffee up to the open door, dropped his head on the seat, got behind him, kicked him in the backside with his right boot.
‘Get in, Mr Chaffee,’ he said.
Chaffee crawled in, using the steering wheel to drag himself. Cam helped, gripped the man’s wide leather belt in both hands, pushed him in, slammed the door, a solid thunk.
Feeling his knuckles, flexing his fingers like a surgeon about to operate, Cam went over to the lifter, swung himself up, started the motor, gunned it, reversed, swung the machine savagely, came up to the Valiant.
‘Ricko,’ he shouted.
Chaffee was holding his chest now, his mouth open, blood in it, running over his lower lip. He looked at Cam, fear, wonder, in his eyes.
‘Who’d you lend the Cruiser to that day, the one they sacked you for?’
‘Dunno what you…’ Chaffee coughed blood.
‘You know, bubba,’ Cam said. ‘Ran your own carhire business at the Curtin. Tell me now. Quick.’
‘Know fuck-all about—’
‘Your mates nearly killed a woman that day, know that, Ricardo?’
‘Nah, don’t—’
Cam raised the hopper.
I stood back.
He dumped the full load of stones, big landscaping stones, on the Valiant.
Stones bounced on the roof, one went through the windscreen, stones fell off the sides, rolled onto the bonnet, the boot.
The roof collapsed, the right-hand door pillar buckled, the back doors popped open.
Cam reversed the machine, swinging around, screamed across to a pit of yellow paving sand, dropped the hopper, drove it into the sand, filled it, sand spilling, raised the hopper, reversed and swung, came back.
A last grey volcanic rock toppled off the Valiant roof, rolled down the crazed, opaque, holed windscreen, over the stoved-in bonnet, fell into a puddle.
In the car, Chaffee was making sobbing, wheezing noises, noises of terror. The roof was pressing on his head and he was trying to open his door, jammed by the impact.
‘Jesus, Ricky,’ said Cam. ‘You come through that alive. You’re tough, you WA boys.’
He pulled the lever, dropped most of a cubic metre of sand on the Valiant. The springs sagged, sand poured into the car through the hole in the windscreen, filled the depressions, slithered to the ground.
The Valiant was disappearing under rocks and sand.
Chaffee screamed.
‘There’s more comin, Ricko,’ said Cam. ‘Then I’m givin you the gravel shower.’ He waited. ‘The Cruiser. Who’d you lend it to? Last time I’m askin you, fat boy.’
‘Artie, Artie, I only know Artie.’ Chaffee’s voice was weak, he could barely speak.
Cam revved the engine, calmed it.
‘More, bubba,’ he said, ‘more.’
‘God’smyfuckenwitness, Artie’s all… I’m dyin…’
‘Damn straight,’ said Cam. He emptied the rest of the sand onto the car, switched off, climbed down, dusted his moleskins, hands brushing. He went over to the wrecked Valiant, tested the door handle, gripped the door pillar in his right hand, and jerked.
The door came open. Cam reached in with both hands and pulled Chaffee out, jerked him out, let him fall into the mud. Paving sand was stuck to the man’s blood, blood and sand all over his big chest, it was in his long hair, and he had a mask of yellow sand on his face, new black blood from his nose eroding it, creating thin furrows of blood.
‘Dyin,’ said Chaffee. ‘Help me.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Cam. ‘WA boy like you, Buggerup, the old home town, take more than a few rocks, bit of sand. What’s that word you called me? I forget. Want to say that again? That word?’
Chaffee put his head back, rolled his face away, into the mud, the white of an eye showing. ‘Mate,’ he said. ‘Sorry, mate.’
‘Well, that’s okay then,’ said Cam. ‘Sorry is such a good word. Pity more people don’t use it. Tell me some more about Artie.’
Chaffee groaned.
On the Hume, cruising, listening to Harry Connick again, I said, ‘A re
ally good trip. A short bloke called Artie. Chaffee’s probably going to die back there and all we got was a short bloke called Artie.’
Cam was tapping his fingertips. ‘Only hit him twice, can’t die of that. Short Artie’s good too.’
‘How’s that?’
‘How many short Arties can there be? Short Arties with a Saint.’
The answering machine was speaking to a caller as I opened the door of my office. I took the two steps and picked up the phone.
‘Ignore those words. Jack Irish.’
‘Jack, Gus.’
Augustine, Charlie Taub’s granddaughter. Alarm, a stab.
‘Charlie?’
‘What?’
‘He’s alright?’
She read my anxiety, laughed her sexy laugh. My shoulders and my chest untightened.
‘Never better. He said to tell you he’s staying another week. He’s playing bowls every day, he’s playing in a tournament next week. He said, and I quote, “Tell Jack, hot’s good for one thing.”’
I sighed.
‘Means something, does it, the message?’
‘Yes. Exactly as I feared. Will you marry me? Take me to Canberra with you?’
Charlie’s granddaughter was a fighter for the oppressed workers and, said the gossip, being courted for a safe federal Labor seat. That or in due course Australia’s highest union office.
‘I’m not going to Canberra,’ she said. ‘You’ve been reading that idiot in the Age. Anyway, I don’t think harem life would suit you.’
‘The zenana. We’d sit around, the boys, playing cards, crocheting, waiting for you to come home and pick one of us.’
‘I may need to give this Canberra business more thought,’ she said. ‘Stay close to the phone.’
It was just after noon. Much of the day ahead, much already accomplished: a trip down the bright golden Hume, the witnessing of a man having his nose broken, his collarbone fractured, tonnes of rock dropped on his prized car, followed by a coating of paving sand, enough sand to provide the base for a nice barbecue area.
Moving on. I settled down at my aged Mac and attended to the affairs of my bustling legal practice, to wit, a letter to Stan’s father’s tenant, Andreas Krysis, asking him to desist from storing things in Morris’s garage, which was not part of his lease.
