A Necessary Evil

by Bruce Venables

  ‘Until you faint??’

  ‘Yes. Apparently it can happen.’

  ‘Until you faint?’

  ‘Yes. The French call it “la petite morte”. The little death.’

  ‘Okay,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll take you home and kill you a little bit at a time. How does that sound?’

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘But you’ll have to wait a minute or two, because right now I can’t stand up. I’m cement from the waist down.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  For three days they’d hardly stopped. He moved inside her and she groaned, shivering with desire as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She began to move beneath him and lick his neck. Her passion was mounting again. Soon she would orgasm. How many times had it been? She’d lost count. She’d had him over and over, in every conceivable way and now she was beneath him again, whispering in his ear, urging him on. Suddenly she drew a deep breath and groaned in his ear. ‘Oh God! I’m there again!’ she whispered.

  ‘Me too!’ he gasped and shuddered with her as they exploded.

  She lay there panting for several minutes and then eased him off her. She got up and moved to the balcony rail.

  ‘I can’t take this any more!’ she moaned. ‘Where did you learn to make love, John Buck?’

  ‘I’ve never made love to anyone else in my life like this.’ John got up and moved to Jane’s side. He put his arm around her and they gazed out over the moonlit ocean. ‘Mind you, this luxury apartment and the view from twenty storeys up is a bit of an aphrodisiac in itself,’ he chuckled. ‘When you couple it with one of the most beautiful women in the world, sex becomes increasingly easy to master.’

  ‘You’re a smooth-tongued bugger, aren’t you?’ Jane left his arms and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Add to that Kenyan coffee and French brandy.’ John laughed. ‘Did I say French brandy? Silly me! I meant thirty-year-old Hennessy Cognac … after that, it’s a bit rude for a bloke not to perform, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is that what it was? A performance?’ She moved to his side and looked into his eyes.

  ‘Yes!’ John cupped her neck in his palm and kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘I’m a policeman. And you’re the most famous madam in Australia. If I allowed it to be anything else, I’d be in deep shit.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Jane mixed herself a drink from the balcony bar. ‘I’m sorry. I got a bit girly.’

  He took the drink from her hand and kissed her long and deep. When he pulled away from her, he looked unwaveringly into her eyes. ‘What did you sense in that kiss, Jane?’

  ‘Emotions,’ she whispered. ‘Deep emotions.’

  ‘Exactly. Add to those emotions, every word and every gesture ever known, by all the lovers in time …’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘But let’s not kid ourselves, okay?’

  Jane kissed him gently. ‘Thank you,’ she said as the phone rang in the lounge room. ‘Get that, will you? Find out who it is.’

  John answered the call. He listened for several seconds. ‘May I say who’s calling, please?’ He placed his hand over the receiver. ‘Grainger Bertram for you.’

  Jane took the call. ‘Grainger, darling, how lovely to hear from you.’

  She joined John on the balcony several minutes later.

  ‘Grainger Bertram? The Grainger Bertram, newspaper magnate?’ John raised an eyebrow and whistled softly.

  Jane shrugged. ‘He’s a business associate, that’s all.’

  ‘Business must be booming!’ He held out his arms towards her.

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’ Jane stared at him.

  ‘Not that it’s any of my business.’ She came to him and he kissed her. ‘Hey!’ he murmured in her ear, ‘I’ve got two days left. What do you want to do?’

  ‘It’s up to you. What do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to do what we’ve been doing since you got here. I want to eat fabulous food, drink ridiculously expensive booze and make love to you on the hour.’ He kissed her again. ‘Believe me, Jane. I’ve never known a time like this in my whole life.’

  ‘Okay!,’ she laughed. ‘Where were we up to? You’ve just had me and the booze—that leaves food, right?’

  ‘Right!’ he smiled dazzlingly. ‘Then we get back to you!’

  Stan Ames hit a three iron from the 18th tee at Royal Sydney Golf Course. He was playing it safe as always. He plucked his tee from the grass and walked off down the fairway.

  Stan was no golfer and had never desired to be one. He only played the game because it was the thing to do. He couldn’t stand the game, if the truth be known, but most senior cops played golf. As far as Ames was concerned, it was all part of the bullshit facade of camaraderie they pretended. He knew it for what it really was. Arse-licking. So he swung his clubs and pulled his buggy like all the others, and chuckled at the dirty jokes whenever it seemed necessary. Today’s golf game was different, however. He was playing a round with Harold Everard and, for once, he was enjoying himself.

  He watched Harold kick his ball a good fifteen yards out of the rough back onto the fairway, then take an iron to the ball and completely miss it. Harold pretended it was a warm-up swing and went through the motions of several more, before striking the ball very badly back into the rough, some forty yards further towards the green.

  Stan knew better than to say anything. He hit his own ball, once again with the three iron and it travelled a hundred yards or so before coming to rest in the centre of the fairway. He grabbed his buggy and joined Harold on the walk to his ball.

  ‘It’s good to be mounting barbaric steeds again, Stan.’ Harold had recently taken to quoting Shakespeare. ‘Let’s face it, old friend, you and I don’t suffer the slings and arrows of atrocious fortune well, do we?’ Even Ames, who’d detested Shakespeare ever since he was a schoolboy, blanched at Harold’s efforts. ‘We’re better off in battle harness, frighting the souls of peaceful adversaries.’

  Ames gestured exasperatedly. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Harold.’

  ‘Shakespeare, Stan. The immortal bard.’ Harold was aware that Stan was no match for him when it came to literature. ‘I’ll spell it out for you, Stan,’ he continued, warming to his subject. ‘Shakespeare was a clever bastard. He understood men. He understood that they were governed by ambition, greed, lust, envy—you name it. Like Macbeth. Shakespeare understood men like that. Men of action. That’s why he wrote about them.’ Harold took an iron from his buggy and hit his ball from the rough. For once he got it right and the ball landed on the green.

  ‘That’s the shot of the day, mate,’ said Ames in a rather bemused tone.

  ‘Thank you, Stan. I’m good at getting out of rough situations. That’s the point I’m trying to make.’ Harold replaced his iron and they walked towards Stan’s ball. ‘We’ve been complacent. We’re men of action. If Shakespeare was alive today, he’d write a play about us. Things have been too easy for us for too long, but now, because our positions have been threatened, the adrenalin is pumping in our veins. Am I right?’

  Ames chuckled. ‘Well, mine certainly is, after walking seventeen holes! Now will you get to the point?’

  ‘Tip-Toe Investments is the point.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s time to shut up shop, Stan.’ Harold paused while Stan played his shot to the green. ‘Close it completely,’ he continued as they walked off. ‘We’ve got a fortune stashed away.’

  ‘Have we?’ Stan was intrigued. ‘Where?’

  ‘In Swiss banks. I’ve been converting our assets into cash over the past two years.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘I told you about it, Stan!’ Harold snapped. ‘Two years ago when I sold the wharf leases, I told you then that I was selling off assets. Since then I’ve severed all ties with the construction business and the fucking unions and sold all of our freeholds.’

  ‘Does Pat Morgan know?’ Ames asked sharply.

  ‘What’s it got to do with him?’ Harold
looked genuinely astonished.

  ‘Pat’d probably think it’s got a lot to do with him.’ Ames laughed. ‘He assumes he’s running Tip-Top Investments.’

  ‘Actually,’ Harold dropped his voice and in his eyes appeared the deadly look that Stan knew only too well. ‘I was getting to Pat.’

  ‘I thought you might.’

  ‘The leak from his office was silenced, but I’m not happy with the state of things, security wise. Christ knows who else saw that memo—which is why I believe we should bury Tip-Toe. We no longer need it.’

  Ames raised his eyebrows. ‘You were getting to Pat, I believe?’

  ‘We bury him too, naturally.’ His voice was without emotion. ‘And everyone else associated with our company dealings.’

  ‘Birmingham?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. John Birmingham is a drug-soaked fool. He’s got to go too.’

  Ames looked sideways at Everard. ‘Are you sure you want to go that far, Harold?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely! I’ve thought about it long and hard. We’ve had a good run, Stan. It’s time we became honest citizens and spent our money.’ Harold put his arm around Stan’s shoulder as they stopped at the green. ‘One night of blood-letting and it’s all over.’ Harold gave Stan a friendly shoulder squeeze then pulled his putter from his golf bag and approached his ball.

  ‘We’ve still got one problem, Harold.’

  ‘I know! I know!’ Harold pulled out of his putt and walked a small circle, returning to line up the putt again. ‘Jane Smart. Jane fucking Smart!’ he muttered and played his putt. The ball went past the hole by eight feet. ‘Damn it, Stan! You put me right off my shot!’

  Stan hit his putt to within a foot of the hole. ‘She could cause problems, Harold. We’ve got to include her in this. We’ve got to let her know she won’t be harmed.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Harold strode across the green to his ball. ‘I’d rather murder the fucking bitch! But you’re right. She’s got us by the balls.’ He hit his ball eight feet past the hole again. ‘Fuck it!’ he roared.

  ‘Take it easy, Harold.’

  ‘Why is it,’ Harold spat as he waved the putter in the air, ‘that the only person in the bloody universe I’d dearly love to murder, for the pure pleasure of it, is the one person I have to ensure outlives me?’ He putted again and missed the hole by several feet. ‘Fuck it!’

  ‘That’s the way it has to be.’ Stan swallowed a laugh as he watched Harold go to his ball and hit it three or four times, until it fell into the cup. ‘If she goes, we go.’ He then putted his own ball into the hole.

  ‘What did you take for the hole?’ Harold asked.

  ‘Actually, I parred it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Harold nonchalantly as he filled in his card. ‘Come on, let’s get to the bloody bar.’

  ‘Have you heard how Shayne is?’ Harold asked, an hour later as they sat at the bar.

  ‘He had a month off. Young John Buck, his mate, took him fishing. I believe he’s back at work now. From all accounts he’s doing all right.’

  ‘Good.’ Harold sipped his beer. ‘I must see him soon. I’ve been a bad parent. Mind you, I’ve been bloody busy.’

  Stan could only laugh at the hypocrisy and wonder what Harold would say if he knew Shayne was seeing Zoe Collingwood, Jane Smart’s ward. It had briefly crossed his mind to tell Harold about the affair, but he knew he never would. Harold would see red and react without reason and fuck everything up.

  Stan also knew that the possibility of Harold finding out about Shayne’s affair was remote. He rarely saw his son and when he did, it was always uncomfortable for him. Stan remembered the night Shayne had found out about his mother’s suicide.

  Harold had handled it badly. The boy had been shocked and in need of fatherly affection and understanding. Typically, Harold had blown it. Whatever tenuous relationship had existed between Harold and Shayne disappeared that night.

  The boy worried Stan Ames. He was a chip off the old block. And by that Stan meant George, his grandfather. The kid could fight like a thrashing machine and recently he’d seen action in the ranks that would destroy most young men. The jewellery shootout had been a shocker by anyone’s standards and young Shayne Everard appeared to have come through it with flying colours. The experience would make him ten times tougher and that would put him on a par with his grandfather.

  His grandfather. Stan’s mind went momentarily to the night they’d shot George Everard. That was the only time Stan had ever been truly afraid. The giant of his childhood dreams had finally got him! Christ! He’d never forget that night.

  ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet, Stan,’ said Harold. ‘What’s the matter? Seen a ghost?’

  ‘Eh?’ Stan looked at Harold’s grinning face. ‘Sorry. I was miles away for a moment. Did you say something?’

  ‘I asked if you’d seen a ghost.’ Harold put his empty beer glass on the bar. ‘It’s your shout.’

  ‘Right.’ Stan put some money on the bar. ‘Sorry. I was thinking of Operation Shutdown.’

  ‘That’s a good name for it. Well done.’

  ‘We’ll have to do it all in one night.’

  ‘You’ll have our faithful hounds to help you,’ Harold said. ‘Schumacher and Spencer. Two healthy young psychopaths, straining at the leash.’

  The bar steward arrived and Stan ordered the beers. The two policemen sat in silence until they’d been served.

  Ames took a deep breath. ‘Do you realise the implications of the action we’re contemplating?’

  ‘Yes I do, but it can’t be done any other way.’ Harold looked around the nearly empty bar and lowered his voice. ‘A politician, an ex-politician, an accountant and three of the richest men in the country. You’ll have to hit them all at once, or one might escape the net.’

  ‘Three accidents and what would appear to be a Mafia-inspired killing of three wealthy men,’ Stan whispered from behind the rim of his fresh beer.

  ‘Brilliant!’ Harold’s eyes glittered.

  ‘But all in the space of one night! And prior to an election? Somebody’s bound to raise an eyebrow.’

  ‘We live in a violent world, Stan.’ Harold smiled benignly as he imagined Richard III might have done. The thought so amused him, he began to laugh out loud.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Now is the winter of our discontent, Stan, made goriest summer,’ Harold tapped his chest with his finger, ‘by this son, of York!’ Harold laughed even louder.

  ‘I don’t get it.’ Stan shook his head.

  ‘I deliberately misquoted Shakespeare. It was very funny!’

  ‘I still don’t get it.’

  ‘Never mind—others will, Stan!’ Harold giggled. ‘Others will! You’ll see to that, won’t you?’

  It was seven o’clock in the evening when the phone rang. Pat Morgan was irritated. Any more delays would make him late for the opera.

  ‘Morgan here,’ he snapped down the line.

  ‘Pat, it’s John Birmingham.’

  Morgan rolled his eyes. ‘What the bloody hell do you want? I’m running late!’

  ‘Does the name Percival Wentworth mean anything to you?’

  ‘No! Why? Should it?’ Morgan struggled with his cuff links and dropped the handpiece. ‘Bugger it!’ He picked up the phone and dropped his cuff links. ‘Who the hell is Percival Wentworth?’

  ‘He’s a public servant. A clerk in your office.’

  ‘So?’ Morgan growled as he knelt on the floor.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Well what’s this got to do with me!’ Morgan asked, his voice muffled as he stretched his arm under the settee next to the phone table.

  Birmingham paused. ‘He wrote a note to a reporter, which mentioned Tip-Toe.’

  ‘What?’ Pat Morgan sat down slowly on the settee. John Birmingham suddenly had his undivided attention. ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I still have my sources,’ Birmingham sighed. ‘Unfortunately they were a week la
te giving me the information.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Figure it out for yourself, Pat!’ Birmingham snarled. ‘One of your clerks mentions Tip-Toe Investments to a reporter and three days later he dies. You don’t have to be fucking Einstein to work out that it may be more than just coincidence!’

  ‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute!’ Morgan shouted into the phone. ‘Your paranoia is beginning to give me the shits, John. For Christ’s sake, calm down! How did this whatever-his-name-is die?’

  ‘He was electrocuted. The police report stated it was a Death by Misadventure.’

  ‘Well, maybe it was! An accident, I mean.’

  ‘If you believe that, boyo, you’ll believe that Phar Lap was a fucking greyhound! You stupid cunt!’

  ‘Please, John,’ reasoned Morgan, ‘try to calm down.’

  ‘Please nothing!’ Birmingham roared. ‘You couldn’t be warned, could you? You couldn’t be told! You pompous prick!’

  ‘John! You’re over-reacting.’

  ‘Well, you’ve done it now!’ Birmingham sounded hysterical. ‘You’ve given them the opening they were looking for. You’ve unleashed the dogs of war, Morgan. You stupid, stupid man!’ Birmingham gasped. ‘They’ll be in the streets this very minute sniffing the night air and they’ll kill us all before they’re done!’

  ‘I’ll call Harold!’ Morgan sighed. ‘I’m sure there’s an explanation for all this. I think you’re going off half-cocked.’

  ‘I don’t care what you—’ Birmingham gasped and the line went silent.

  ‘John? John? Are you there?’ Morgan listened to the wheezing on the other end of the line.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here.’ Birmingham was struggling for breath. ‘But not for much longer. I’m taking off.’

  ‘Going? Going where?’ Morgan shook his head at Birmingham’s histrionics.

  ‘Anywhere. Away!’ Birmingham took a deep breath and tried desperately to control his fear.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, man!’ snorted Morgan. ‘You’re panicking over nothing.’

  ‘I’m getting out!’ Birmingham babbled. ‘I just rang to warn you. Grab what money you can and get out! Goodbye, Pat.’ The line went dead.