by Andres Kabel
But Bertoli was animal speed and Tusk felt searing pain on his left side. He stumbled and his feet were swept under him. Plummeted down, cheekbone crashing against hardness. Twisted to leap back up, but something smashed his head down again, and then he felt a weight straddling him and inhumanly strong hands gripping his head. He heard something crack and white light seared his vision.
An overpowering odor. Aftershave.
CHAPTER 44
A car backfired. Peter jerked in the front passenger seat of the Peugeot. The same crack again. Shots! He sat up, trembling.
“Shit.”
He clambered out of the car and looked down the empty road. The sun had vanished and he felt chill air on his cheeks.
“Jesus. Jesus.”
He hugged himself, wished only to lie down. A whimper escaped him.
He thought of Scaffidi, the live eye deep in its socket. He pictured Bertoli, smelled that aftershave. He remembered Mick by lamplight, risking all for him.
Peter ran.
“Mick!” he screamed into the sky.
He sprinted between pine trees. A big house. Up steps to a porch enclosed by a white marble railing.
“Mick!”
He pounded on the door, hands pulsing with pain, peered in the front window. A still body by a fireplace, Mick in the middle of the room.
Mick lay on his front, head arched back. Riding him, cord around his neck, soared the hood of Bertoli. Bunched muscles stood out on Bertoli’s arms as he strained the cord back. His lips were parted. And those death-adder eyes dared Peter, glowering at him without moving, removed from the dance of death being enacted below.
Mick’s eyes bulged unseeing. Great labored wheezes issued from his gaping mouth. Blue. His face was blue!
“Think!” Peter bellowed.
He picked up a white metal chair and wheeled around.
“Throw!”
He released the chair. The window exploded and the chair crashed onto the wooden floor. Inside, the tableau remained unchanged. Mick’s bunched shoulders began to slump.
“Go!”
Tears streaming down his face, Peter plunged through the jagged hole in the window. Sharpness stabbed an elbow.
“Jump!”
Insane energy rampaged his body. He charged and launched himself. For the first time, Bertoli’s eyes blinked.
Peter landed on Bertoli, attaching to the thin head, flailing his arms and legs, scratching and kicking at hair and cloth and slick skin. Bertoli reared below him, shaking him off like a rag. A hand grabbed his shirt. Blood trickled down one side of the monster’s face, but Bertoli smiled as his other hand came at him.
Savage pain shot through Peter’s face and he crashed backward, head smashing into the floor. Waves of agony lashed him. His vision blacked out for an instant, then he looked up to see the face of death itself, lips smiling, hands outstretched, coming toward him. He screamed.
A roar blasted his ears. Bertoli lifted up like a rubber doll and flung himself down. Something acrid filled the air. And, oh my God, that smell of blood. Images of Marcia. Rollo. Kantor. He tried to shout but pain blanketed his face.
A minute later, or it could have been an hour, Peter somehow propped himself up on an elbow. His face hurt. Bertoli lay on his back, limbs twitching. Something was amiss with the hit man’s face, it looked moth-eaten. A puddle of blood spread patiently. Peter registered moaning.
Mick stood above him. The fierce light rendered him a heaving colossus. His face was a red mask of rage, thunderous breaths issuing from behind bared teeth. The big man held a gun aimed down at Bertoli. His eyes, blue and beautiful, caught Peter’s.
No, it can’t be. Peter widened his eyes and poured the message—no more death—toward his savior and burden.
“Fuck it,” said the mountain.
Peter had never heard a more welcome sound. The gun clattered on the floor. Peter’s head sank toward the ground again and consciousness fled, Mandy’s burning brown eyes looming in his head. Sirens wailed far away. I’m all right, Mandy, he thought.
CHAPTER 45
Mick Tusk’s body was a foreign country. Even with all the shit the nurses had pumped him full of, every muscle ached, every joint felt bruised. His neck flamed.
He paced the hospital room, watched Gentle’s chest rise and fall, adjusted the venetian blinds to let in more of the soft sunlight. Half-encased in bandages, Gentle’s unlined, unconscious face reminded Tusk of a child’s. Time check—11:49. Wednesday, almost exactly a week since the geek sucked him into this godforsaken escapade.
Tusk had scored a night at Knox, his first stay in a private hospital, through the emergency ward. More like a hotel than a place for sick people, with its pastel wallpaper, large shiny bathrooms, television sets, nurses who actually smiled. Even the claustrophobic smell of antiseptic and decay seemed muted. That didn’t stop him from hating it, despising all the useless invalids he spotted while hobbling around the ward to prevent himself dozing off.
After yesterday’s police circus and a blessedly long sleep, it had taken most of the morning for Tusk to check himself out, over the protests of the officious Dr. Ritten. Now he could only focus on two things—a walk with Dana and Bully in the lung-clearing air of Belgrave, and the health of his mate.
Gentle stirred. Tusk leaned over to take his hand. The eyes opened, blinked.
“I’m alive.” Gentle’s voice was furry.
“Sure are.” Tusk smiled to dampen an unexpected surge in his chest. “The Devil sent you back. Said he couldn’t stand the yakety-yak.”
Gentle made an attempt to sit up, fell back with a groan. “Jesus, my face.”
“Hairline fracture of your jaw. They’ve immobilized it. The doc says it’s not too bad. You’ll be sore for a few days, and your diet right now is liquids.”
“Cappuccino through a straw, eh? Where am I?”
“Knox,” Tusk said. “You yuppies with your bloody private health insurance. Careful moving, you cracked a rib as well. And there’s a nasty gash on that arm.”
“God, you look terrible,” Gentle said.
Tusk fingered his cheek, a swollen eggplant that nearly closed his right eye. Lucky not to crack it, according to Dr. Ritten.
When Gentle’s gaze moved to the purple ring around Tusk’s neck, his eyes widened. “Your neck, Mick. Jesus, your neck.”
Tusk saw the thin chest begin to labor. Christ, he knew what it felt like to flash on the horrors of yesterday.
“Looks worse than it feels,” he lied.
“Bertoli?”
“Died on the way to the hospital.” Tusk recalled his finger on the trigger, how close he’d come. “Thanks for…”
“Forget it.”
So much had happened in the twenty-four hours since the “Battle in the Bush,” as the press dubbed it. Reporters were having a field day linking Bertoli to Rollo Keppel. Tusk had never seen anyone as grim as Sam Vinci when the cop looked down at the corpse of his man Mixton. Bye-bye promotion for Vinci; Deputy Commissioner Peacock himself had already announced an internal investigation.
Vinci and Deirdre had grilled Tusk in the emergency ward, but he’d had little to add. Deirdre wore a quiet confidence; she’d been first on the scene and had come out of the case smelling of roses. And something had changed in Vinci’s attitude toward Tusk. The cop had even rung him this morning to say they’d questioned Scaffidi but couldn’t sustain a link. Scaffidi didn’t even own the Gully Drive house. Tusk refused to think about it, knew if he dwelled on the scumbag…
“I owe you, Gentle,” Tusk said, voice suddenly shaky.
How could he ever forget that moment? Looking up, lungs on fire, a red film across his eyes, to see an apparition outside the window, screaming and dancing as if alight. Then the sound of the shattering window when he could no longer see. Tusk’s own courage, or what others called courage, he knew to be merely years of training in violence. What Gentle did merited the true label of valor.
“I’ll send you the bill
.” Gentle winced at an attempt at a chuckle. “Anyway, it’s me who owes you, Mick.”
“Peter.” The lanky figure of Mandy, in a smart gray jacket and skirt, sailed in through the door. She gasped.
“The new look,” Gentle said, face reddening. He grunted and sat up.
And then Dana stood in the doorway. Black skirt with shiny black shoes, crimson lipstick, and a red top built for her figure. Tusk gulped. She’d told him she would bring Mandy over. Did she still love him? How could she? His mouth went dry.
“Oh, Mikey,” she cried.
She rushed to him, touched the livid halo around his neck.
“Oh, Mikey.” Something in Tusk melted when she wrapped her warm body around his bruises. She kissed him, lips sliding.
Incredibly, he felt himself harden.
“Hey,” Gentle said. “If that’s married life, I want some of it.”
Mandy slapped Gentle in mock outrage. Dana pulled away, and Tusk cringed at the look of malevolence she gave Gentle.
Tusk and Mandy sat beside the patient. Dana stood staring out the window. Gentle clutched Mandy’s hand like a lifeline while she read out an Australian Financial Review article reporting that Scientific Money’s Quant Fund #1 had gone downhill ever since Kantor died, losing fifteen percent in value during a week when the All Ords only declined three percent. From being the best-performing investment fund in Australia, its performance was now amongst the worst. Already since the news about Rollo, a panic run on the fund had commenced.
“Listen,” Mandy said. “Here’s what the editorial says: ‘How did this man manage to fool all our regulators?’”
The Age showed a photo of Weiqing Chang coming out of court, his round face grave.
“Harvey told me there’s a group of investors mounting a huge class action against Scientific Money and the Keppels,” Mandy said. Almost pretty, Tusk thought, when she smiles like that.
“It’s all about love,” Gentle said. “Kantor did it for Imogen and Straw, Rollo tried to keep Bella.”
“Crap,” Tusk said. “Money, that’s the key.”
“Did someone mention money?” Tusk whirled to see Bishop striding in.
The bloodsucking lawyer wore another brand new suit. His eyes twinkled under the curly hair, until he saw the bandages and bruises.
“My God,” he said.
Bishop recovered composure quickly, introduced himself to the women, then handed checks to the two partners. Tusk gasped—his check was for $75,000.
“What the hell’s going on?” he said. “This is nearly double what you contracted. Too much.”
“There’s no such thing as too much money,” Gentle said.
“Now don’t fuss,” Bishop said. “That’s the partial payment Imogen Keppel made, plus a bonus from me. Call it an incentive bonus—incentive to keep working for me. I always knew the egghead and the beefcake would do me proud, and I’ve picked up mega business since Sunday.”
“What, defending Mrs. Keppel’s interests?” Gentle clutched his check like a treasure.
Bishop cackled. “No, she sacked me when she found out from Rollo that you two were still pursuing the case. No, I’m putting together the biggest class action in Australia’s history.”
“And Mrs. Keppel?” Gentle said.
“In deep trouble.” The lawyer seemed to find this almost amusing. “She’ll be lucky to escape with any assets, if you ask me.”
Tusk thought fleetingly about Straw. Her monastic life would be shattered.
Bishop looked at his watch. “Mustn’t dally.” He shook hands with Gentle, nodded at Tusk. Strode away.
Dana came over from the window and looked at Tusk’s check, then at him. She walked back to the window, her face stony.
“Well, you two are heroes, didn’t you know?” Mandy said.
Gentle beamed. “Heroes shmeroes.”
Seeing the transparent joy on Gentle’s face, for the first time Tusk granted himself permission to measure his success. It’s true, he thought, we caught them—Bertoli, Mixton, Rollo Keppel, even Brindle and Dancer and Chang—it was us, no one else.
A crowd bustled into the room. Gentle’s parents, followed by a tanned man in his forties and a young guy with dreadlocks, both of them unmistakably Gentle’s brothers.
“Oh, Peter, darling.” Gentle’s mother threw her hands up, rushed to weep over him.
Trevor Gentle stood back. He wore a suit and carried himself erect, like a policeman again, not a drongo retiree.
“Well done, Tusk,” he said. “Tell me about it one day. Over a beer.”
That’s your son’s job, Tusk thought.
Back spasms made him wince as he rose. He folded the check once, thought of kissing it, slipped it into a pocket. He went to Dana—honestly, he thought, isn’t that much money worth a bit of cheer?—and took her hand.
“Time to scoot,” he said.
He looked back from the doorway. Gentle’s family and Mandy enveloped the bandaged hero. For a moment, Tusk resisted Dana’s tugging hand. Gentle’s eyes lifted over the throng and caught his.
An insidious voice whispered to Tusk: Didn’t you feel alive, arsehole? For all the heartache, wasn’t the last week the stuff of life? He couldn’t answer himself.
Gentle nodded.
Tusk nodded back.
CHAPTER 46
Rita, a plump nurse with white hair and a cross on a chain around her neck, trimmed Peter Gentle’s hair on Thursday morning, the day after he watched Mandy fall in love with him.
“I’ve never seen such a mess in all my life,” Rita said.
“Ouch! Be careful.”
“My cat is better groomed than you.”
“Your cat…”
“What’s the matter, luvvy? You look like you’ve left the gas on in the oven.”
***
Freshly shorn, Peter managed to tolerate television for fifteen minutes, then rang Mandy and asked her to bring him some mystery novels.
Mostly he slept. The pain came and went, and often he felt so drugged that his mind, now engaged again, refused to function optimally. His mother came just before lunch and announced she would visit every day. He pretended to sleep.
***
Peter half-dozed and reflected on the Keppel brothers. Kantor—an enigma even now. Rollo—battling the fates while the seeds he’d sown bore terrible fruit. And Willy—where was he now? It seemed incomprehensible that such a wreck could hold on to Bella for long, but Peter found himself wishing the sax player luck.
Should he ring Bella and pass on Rollo’s final message? She’d curse him. He sat up and drafted a short letter.
Dear Mrs. Keppel,
Before he died, your husband asked me to tell you that he loved you. My role at this juncture is simply to inform you of his parting words, but I feel I would be remiss if I did not state that I believe his words were most heartfelt.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Gentle
He asked Rita to mail it.
***
Hector was sitting by the bed when Peter awoke on Thursday afternoon.
“That big friend of yours—Mick,” Hector said. “Rang and suggested I bring this.”
Iced coffee in a large plastic takeaway cup!
“Am I your best customer, Hec?” Peter asked, slurping the bitter brew through a straw.
Hector stroked his mustache. Peter had never seen him before without his apron. “Either you or Harvey, that’s for certain.”
After Hector left, Peter rang Arnold Ng at IBM. “Arnold, do you have any software whiz-kids free tomorrow?”
“Skull! That jaw sure makes you sound funny. I can spare someone, sure. But why?”
***
That night, just as visiting hours came to an end, and crowds of noisy relatives filed past his room, three Skulk Club members arrived. Harvey’s face was drawn: “This frigging job’s killing me.” Carlo smiled modestly when Peter praised his role in the case. And Renni Maisel unveiled a bottle of champagne, plastic
cups, and one straw.
The pop of the cork seemed to Peter the most joyous sound in the world. He drank and laughed until Rita caught them and sent his friends packing.
***
“A nice, steady office job is what you need, Peter,” his mother said on her Friday morning visit. Already Peter’s jaw felt much better and he’d begun to eat mush without a straw. When she left, he drew up a To-Do list on the margin of a newspaper.
Move out of home into city apartment
Buy car
New suit
Ask M to begin hunting for more work
Flowers
***
Late Friday morning, just after Rita removed the bandages on his face, Helen Chen from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority rang.
“Mr. Gentle, do you recall the meeting we had about Scientific Money?” she said.
“I most certainly do.” Peter flexed his jaw. At last he could speak freely again. “Are you happy with the outcome of your dithering?”
It was an unkind cut. She was just a middle-ranking bureaucrat.
“That’s the past, Mr. Gentle. What I’m ringing you about is whether you’d be interested in a consultancy with APRA. The brief would be to help us strengthen the regulatory structure to guard against future occurrences of this kind. A major brief, I can tell you.”
Peter’s head pounded as he shook it. Nobody would ever devise rules to prevent people of the caliber of Kantor and Rollo Keppel fooling the system.
“Sorry, Ms. Chen. I don’t do consulting. I’m a private detective.”
***
Rita found him a pad of paper, on which he drew complex, spiraling diagrams, spreading the pages over the bed.
“Trying to puzzle out one of them books?” Rita was changing the dressing on his arm.
He laughed. “No, it’s a real puzzle. The one I’ve just been involved in, actually.”
“But that’s all finished. I didn’t even see anything about it in this morning’s Herald Sun.”
“I just need to understand it fully.”
