The Tattooed Man

by Alex Palmer

  ‘Do you like them?’

  ‘I do. I always do.’

  ‘Good. It’s all part of having a bit of fun and sparkle in your life,’ she said, looking at him with a glint in her eye.

  ‘Maybe you should have bought white lilies instead of pink. White lilies in a wreath with a sash that reads Harrigan’s Career, Rest in Peace.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He shut the kitchen door.

  ‘I’m going upstairs to get something out my safe. It’s a tape and I need privacy to play it. Do you want to smoke? Go ahead. I’m having another whisky.’

  He got her an ashtray. They exercised this unspoken tolerance towards each other’s vices. He had once smoked heavily and now loathed the taint of cigarette smoke. She had once had the choice between drinking alcohol and staying alive. These days just the smell of it made her ill. She kept beer in her fridge for him; he supplied her with ashtrays that had been unused for years. When he came back downstairs, he put a small audio tape on the table and poured himself a second whisky. She looked at the tape but didn’t touch it. He sat opposite her and watched her light up. No one else smoked in his house.

  ‘Have you heard any of the news coverage?’ he asked.

  ‘I was listening to it in the car. Four dead. Two were men but they didn’t give any names. The other two were Natalie and Julian Edwards. They said the minister found them. I thought Edwards didn’t have anything to do with his ex-wife. He didn’t want her reputation damaging his.’

  ‘He was seeing her about their son. One of those bodies was someone called Jerome Beck. I’ve never heard of him before. But I can tell you the other one was Mike Cassatt, dead as a dodo. Almost mummified. We couldn’t even tell how he died.’

  ‘You’re joking! What would he be doing there?’

  Harrigan sat over his drink for a few moments without touching it.

  ‘Throwing a time bomb into my life,’ he said. ‘You see this tape? Mike gave it to me about a year ago. I came home one day and found him sitting in my backyard.’

  ‘Why would he come here?’

  ‘That’s another story,’ Harrigan replied. ‘When I saw him, I thought he was going to kill me. He laughed instead. Said he had cancer of the liver. He was going to die and he was taking me with him. Then he left that tape and walked away. Except he wasn’t dying. It was a misdiagnosis. He rang to tell me he hadn’t forgotten me or the tape and I could wait to find out what he was going to do with it. Meanwhile, it was in his safety deposit box. If you want to know why I did what I did tonight, you need to listen to this tape. But it’s dangerous to know. I don’t want to put you in danger. If you want to go there, you have to make that choice yourself. If you say no, it won’t matter.’

  ‘Who are we going to be listening to?’

  ‘The Ice Cream Man himself.’

  ‘Tell me why you have this connection to him first,’ she said carefully. ‘Everything I’ve heard about you, he’s always there somewhere. Why?’

  ‘You tell me what you’ve heard first.’

  She tapped ash gently into the ashtray.

  ‘Basically two stories. One says you took him on and he almost killed you for it. The other says you were in his pocket from the time you started. But you fell out over money and he went after you and put you in hospital. After that you went straight and you were slick. No one could prove anything against you. I’ve heard another story as well. The one about Eddie Lee where everyone’s careful not to mention any names too directly.’

  ‘You’ve heard about him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s all old gossip.’

  Old gossip never seemed to die. Harrigan remembered the press conference where he’d announced they were upgrading Cassatt’s disappearance to a murder inquiry. A crime reporter from a national daily had got to her feet. ‘I’ve got three questions for you, Commander,’ she said. ‘Is it true you started your career in NSW Police under the auspices of the Ice Cream Man? Do you have any information that ties him to the still unsolved murder of Edward Lee? And instead of the unknown assailants you’ve always claimed were responsible, was Cassatt behind the incident twelve years ago that put you in hospital on life support?’

  ‘There’s a one-word answer to those three questions,’ Harrigan had replied. ‘No. Does anyone want to ask me a question about the case at hand?’

  The journalist had printed all three questions in the paper the next day. Grace must have read that story, heard all these things said, and still never talked to him about them.

  ‘I didn’t believe any of those stories.’ She spoke suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. ‘I don’t believe you’d ever take money from someone like Cassatt. And I don’t believe you could ever be involved in anyone’s murder.’

  ‘I’ve never taken money and I haven’t killed anyone,’ he said. ‘But Mike did almost kill me. One night in a back alley in Marrickville. There were three of them. You’ve met one, Jerry Freeman. Mike wanted me to eat my gun. He said, “You’re dead, mate.” Now you know who I was throwing that glass at.’

  ‘How come you’re still alive?’

  ‘Some brave person I never got to thank shone their headlights on us at high beam. Mike never fired the shot, I’ll never know why. He smashed my jaw instead and ran.’

  Grace shook her head, her eyes glistening.

  ‘That’s too close. I don’t want to think about that. Did you take him on?’

  ‘Like a fool, yes. I kept baiting him. I’d sabotage his operations. I’d let journalists know what he was up to. I’d tip off crims who had it in for him. Once I arrested one of his couriers and flushed his stash of heroin down the toilet. I can’t believe what I used to do. I must have had a death wish.’

  ‘Why? Did you want to be a hero? A totally dead one.’

  ‘I was high on the adrenaline. I knew how dangerous it was and I was getting a kick out of it. Mad.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you took Cassatt on in the first place,’ she said.

  ‘Because every time I look in a mirror, I’m supposed to see him looking back at me. I was supposed to be him; he was supposed to be the older brother I never had. Cassatt’s been there since I was born. His father and mine were old mates, they were in Korea together. After his dad died, he was always around at our house. Dad wanted me to be just like Mike. He used to say to me, “He’s someone you should look up to. He makes his own luck. You follow him and he’ll take you places.”’

  ‘Didn’t your father know what sort of a man he was?’

  ‘Dad knew everything about him. My father was a petty crim. He wasn’t always like that but that’s how he ended up. He got into pilfering when he worked on the docks. Then he started working for Mike’s mates—they had a machinery repair business down near the container wharves. They were importing heroin. Mike was greenlighting them, Dad was their cockatoo. I didn’t want to be like either of them.’

  She had a habit of flicking the end of her carefully manicured fingernails with her thumb when she was thinking. Today, they were a yin and yang of light and dark red. He noticed these things about her, the small pieces of her body language he had learnt to read.

  ‘Play the tape then. I don’t want to live in the dark about something like this.’

  ‘It’s about a murder, Grace. Are you sure you want to take that on?’

  ‘You said it was my choice. Play it.’

  4

  ‘When you listen to this, Paulie, tell yourself one thing. You owe your dad your life. You kept giving me grief but I waited till old Jimbo died before I did anything about it. You’re so high and mighty now, but remember I got you your job as a favour to him. You owe me but you’ve always been disloyal. Even when you first came out of the Academy and you went to Dave McKenzie in Robbery when you were supposed to be with me.

  ‘Took me a while to get you over to my squad. You didn’t help any. The day I watched you walk through the door, I thought, I’m going to break you. Me, Joe and Jerry were there to
meet you. I’ve still got the tie I had made for you, with New Boy on the nametag. “Put it on,” I told you. “Everyone here’s got one and you’re one of us now.” You closed up and I wondered if you were going to walk out on me. But you couldn’t throw your job away. You had that spastic kid to support.

  ‘I let it go a fortnight. Then I told you, “You don’t leave tonight, you’re driving for me.” It was just me and Joe, but you stayed, you got the message. You were twenty-three. Way past time for you to get blooded. I watched you drive us to Double Bay. Were you going to see it through, I wondered. But you kept driving and you parked where I told you to.

  ‘It’s dark there, in that corner of the street back from the shopping centre. People don’t see you. Finally the man we’re waiting for turns up. Mr Edward Lee. Merchant banker. He’d been out to dinner and was heading for his car. The last meal he ever had. I got him out of some bad stuff and he thought he could renege on me. I warned him: “You can’t not pay me, mate. You like fucking little boys too much and I can prove it.” Bold as brass, he came back: “You can get away with anything in this town if you know the right people. I know enough to protect myself but you’ll go down.” Bad mistake, Eddie. If people knew I’d let that happen, they’d walk all over me.

  ‘He was on the floor in the back of the car before he knew what hit him. Joe put the cuffs on him and stuck a bit of tape over his mouth. His face, the way he looked. I laughed. I said, “I thought you liked this sort of thing, mate.” I told you we were taking Eddie home. You must have known what was going to happen. I saw your hands shaking. I thought, you fucking coward. I’m going to make you do this.

  ‘We got into his house through the garage. I had Eddie by the hair. “You’re going to be sorry for what you said, mate. You’re not bringing me down.” Joe and me, we let him have it. Put the boot right in. Here’s your chance, Paulie. Prove yourself. No way. You ran for the fucking door. It took the two of us to drag you back. “You shoot him,” I told you. “You do it now.” I shoved that gun in your hand but you dropped it. You shouted at me: “No!” I smacked you in the face for that. You had blood coming out of your mouth, on your shirt, your tie. You were a mess. I did it myself. Twice in Eddie’s head. Finished. Then I rubbed some of Eddie’s blood on your tie. “Welcome to the club,” I said. “This is how it is. Get used to it.”’

  Harrigan hit the stop button. He sat there, caught in the memory in his head. Grace had forgotten to smoke; her cigarette was dead in the ashtray.

  ‘Unsolved Sydney mysteries,’ she said, her face pale in the light. ‘Who killed Eddie Lee? Is that really what happened?’

  ‘Word for word. They took the house apart after that looking for money. They found it. Mike knew where to look. Then he said I needed fortifying and we went somewhere else. I drove. My hands were shaking but I got there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Some flea-bitten dump in South Sydney called the Sportsman Club. It’s not there any more. Mike had an arrangement with the owner. Free beer and free roots in exchange for not bothering him too much about his other activities.’

  Grace raised an elegant eyebrow ever so slightly. ‘Daggy décor. Saggy sex workers in G-strings pulling the beers,’ she said with a kind of wry gloominess.

  ‘I don’t remember much about it. I was twenty-three. I’d just seen someone shot dead. I wanted to get out of there. They were laughing themselves sick. They wanted to get pissed.’

  He pressed play again. ‘We always had the back room to ourselves. The girl turned up and I asked for a jug. I took out a little money and tucked it into your top pocket. You looked sick, I thought you needed cheering up. “What’s that for?” you said. I give you money and you say that to me. It sure as fuck wasn’t anything you’d earned. “Buy something for that spastic kid of yours,” I said. “In case you don’t know it, Joe, Paulie here has a kid. No, he’s got a vegetable.” I looked you right in the eyes. “Put him away. He’ll never know who you are. He’ll die soon.” The beer arrived. You got up, said you needed a piss. I told the girl, “Get us another jug. Then you can make yourself useful to my young friend here. He needs a fuck.”

  ‘When you came back, you weren’t wearing your tie. You threw it on the table with the money I gave you and the car keys. “I’m leaving,” you said. “I’ve got better things to do with my life than run after you.” Joe went dead quiet. I told you, “You say that to me. You cunt.” Then you walked away, right into the girl carrying the beer. You were soaked. I shouted, “You’ve pissed yourself, Paulie.” Me and Joe, we laughed. I thought, you’re finished.

  ‘We got to your place before you did. Old Jimbo was in hospital at the time, otherwise I would have done it somewhere else. That was the night we let you know what we could do to you if we wanted to. I told you, “Keep your mouth shut or you’re dead.” You knew I meant it. About three weeks later, Dave’s got you back on the job. Then I find out why you’re back. You start giving me grief. You think you can take me on. You paid for that, mate, big time.

  ‘This is the final payoff, Paulie. I’ve got your tie. It’s got your blood on it along with Eddie’s. I’ve got the gun that shot him, it’s got your prints on it. I’ve got this tape. They’re all in my safety deposit box. When the time comes, they’re all going to Marvin Tooth. Special assistant commissioner, the man who spends half his life up the commissioner’s arsehole. Good old Fang. The man who wants to be commissioner way ahead of you. When I’m gone, you go too. Look forward to it, mate.’

  Cassatt’s voice stopped, the tape continued in silence. Harrigan rewound it and took it out. Grace sipped warm soda water.

  ‘That’s a voice from the grave,’ she said, her own voice shaking a little. ‘Is everything on that tape true?’

  ‘Every word. And now someone out there has everything that was in Mike’s safety deposit box. They’ve got their hands on my life and there’s no way I can know who they are. Until they ring me up and tell me they want something from me.’

  She shook another cigarette out of the packet and lit it. He watched her gathering calm. She was like this, never clingy or brimming with overdone sympathy.

  ‘Whoever has it, it’s not the Tooth,’ she said. ‘If he had any of that evidence in his possession, let alone this tape, you’d be out of a job right now.’

  Harrigan smiled dryly. Grace had her own unpleasant memories of encounters not only with Marvin but with his son as well, including an attempt by the two of them to drive her out of her job while she’d still been with the police. Baby Tooth, as Marvin’s boy, Sean, was known, was also a serving police officer. On a fast track through the ranks, he owed his promotions solely to his father’s patronage.

  ‘What evidence is there left from Eddie Lee’s murder?’ she asked. ‘Any DNA? Can they tie you in?’

  ‘There’d be enough. We’ve still got the clothes he was wearing. It wouldn’t be hard to get a match.’

  ‘How would you protect yourself if any of this did get out?’

  ‘Do what everyone does. Deny everything. Get a good lawyer.’

  ‘It wouldn’t save you,’ she said. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t go to gaol for being an accessory but the publicity would finish your career for good. Did you say anything to anyone at the time?’

  ‘No. If I had, it wouldn’t have mattered who my father was. Right now, I’d be a little pile of bones for the fishes somewhere off South Head.’

  Grace shivered. ‘Don’t say that, not even as a joke. Why didn’t you go after them later when they almost killed you? Why not accuse them? Take them to trial.’

  ‘Because no one would have supported me. My reputation would have been dragged through the mud. I’d have been hounded out of the force and put under so much personal pressure it would have wrecked my life. I’d walked away alive. That was as much as I could expect and I knew it.’

  ‘But why stay in the job? You could have done something else. Didn’t you have your law degree by then?’

  This was a question Harrigan w
asn’t prepared to answer, even to himself.

  ‘Why should I let them chase me out?’

  She drew on her cigarette and didn’t reply. They sat in silence for a few moments. Her smoke curled in the air.

  ‘What a story,’ she said. ‘The Ice Cream Man invites you into his life. Drinking bucketloads of beer in stinky clubs and fucking bored sex workers who couldn’t care less whether you’re alive, dead or a rubber dick. Why would you want to live like that? It’s so nowhere.’

  Harrigan had never heard the feared Ice Cream Man brushed aside with so much uncompromising female disdain. It made him laugh from deep inside until the tears came down his cheeks. A nagging tension was resolved; his personal nightmares might have disappeared into the air with the grey wisps of her cigarette smoke.

  ‘Was it really so funny?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, it was.’ He grew serious. ‘That’s not the end of it. I’ve asked Trev to keep me briefed on what’s happening with this investigation. I have to, Grace. If the Ice Cream Man’s involved, I have to know where this job is going.’

  Suddenly there was a hint of tears in her own eyes, angry ones.

  ‘Do you? I knew when you went up there today, it wasn’t just going to be for one afternoon. What did you say? We’ll be on leave together. Nothing will get in the way.’

  ‘You heard the news. There’s a federal government minister involved. I can’t just walk away.’

  ‘But you can walk away from us.’

  ‘No, it’s not like that.’ Harrigan took Sam Jonas’s card out of his wallet and handed it to Grace. ‘Something else happened today. She was waiting for me when I left the house at Pittwater. She works for a company with a connection to the minister. She asked if I’d be prepared to take a bribe.’

  ‘Did she? Personal security manager. Doesn’t that mean bodyguard?’

  ‘She talked like she was more into intelligence gathering.’

  ‘For who?’ Grace asked.

  ‘The CEO of that company. This is who they are.’