Black Tide

by Peter Temple

  ‘Can’t find Triple J,’ he said. ‘Got to have that station.’

  I groaned.

  On the way back, high over the cruel grey strait, Cam said to the pilot, ‘That strip, that’s an abalone strip, right?’

  The crapduster looked at Cam, frowned, pushed back his cap, scratched his number one haircut. ‘Y’know,’ he said, ‘go so many places, I forget.’

  Cam nodded. He seemed pleased with the answer.

  I drowsed. I wanted to go home, to take off my clothes, have a shower, go to bed and sleep. A deep, dreamless sleep.

  The landing was silky. So silky that I did not register my return to earth.

  In the Brock Holden, running the freeway, I said to Cam, ‘Four people dead. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Before you got there?’

  ‘No. While I was there.’

  He looked at me. ‘While?’

  It was too early in the day, whatever day it was, to tell the story. ‘I misjudged this bloke,’ I said. ‘I think his friends might want to have a word with me.’

  Cam punched a button on the console. Muddy Waters from every direction, drowning in the Waters.

  I woke up in a big bed, white sheets, white blanket, white room, clean-smelling sheets, light of day from huge uncurtained windows.

  What day? Where?

  I sat up, alarmed, swept the bed linen away, naked, heart pumping. Then I remembered. I went to the window and looked out on a wide arc of the city. Below me lay Albert Park lake and beyond that Middle Park and the bay. Off to the right, I could see the Westgate Bridge and Williamstown.

  Time? I found my watch beside the bed. Just after noon. I’d only slept for five hours.

  Only? How many hours did I have?

  I wandered around the apartment. Little had registered earlier in the day. It was the penthouse, minimally furnished, no pictures, huge windows taking in the whole city, polished boards underfoot, a kitchen like a high-style operating theatre, a gym and a sauna and a Japanese bath and two showers in the football team-sized bathroom.

  ‘Belongs to a bloke I know, never there,’ Cam had said. How did he know people who owned places like this?

  On the coffee table in the sitting room, I found two new shirts, new underpants, my jacket and pants in a drycleaner’s bag, a mobile phone, a ring with three keys, and a plastic card with a magnetic strip and a barcode. A note from Cam said:

  Food on the ground floor. The mobile’s clean. Car in bay 12 in basement 1. The card gets you through the doors.

  In a shower, water boring into me from all directions, I tried to work out what to do. No Gary to look for now. No videotape of the Bangkok interrogation.

  Gary was TransQuik. And Dave was TransQuik, TransQuik inside the government. Possibly a late recruit to the TransQuik cause, recruited after Gary’s disappearance, perhaps even later. I’d been looking for Gary on behalf of TransQuik, a late recruit myself.

  What had Gary told Dean Canetti in Bangkok? Something explosive. Dean said:

  …wait till you see this, you’ll cream your jeans, it’ll hang Mr S.

  Mr Smartarse. Steven Levesque.

  Dried, dressed, I got out my notebook, looked for Chrissy Donato-Connors-Sargent. She was home.

  ‘Chrissy, you said something about someone telling Alan there was funny money in TransQuik…’

  45

  A warder with a look that said a mass breakout could be imminent showed me into the interview room.

  Miles Crewe-Dixon, formerly accountant to Alan Sargent, was waiting for me, smoking a cigarette. He was in his fifties, a round-faced man, not grown slim on prison food, neat hair, straight, grey, short. He had the air of someone you could trust. I’d appeared for a childcare centre owner with a similar look. The convictions in New Zealand were under another name.

  We shook hands. ‘Thanks for seeing me,’ I said.

  ‘My pleasure. Breaks the monotony of a model prisoner’s life.’ The right side of his face scrunched up. He had a facial tic.

  I sat down. ‘Alan Sargent sends his regards.’

  ‘Give him mine. Chips down, only client prepared to be a character witness. I can do something for you? Ask.’

  ‘TransQuik,’ I said. ‘Alan says you thought the potato wasn’t entirely clean.’

  Miles smiled, sardonic smile. ‘Where the legend begins,’ he said. ‘Steven Levesque. Little company is seed of empire. Like Rupert Murdoch.’

  I prompted him. ‘Levesque bought TransQuik from Manny Lousada.’

  His facial tic. ‘I did that acquisition for them. Before that they were only in the household move market, undercutting everyone, all the other small companies, pushed some of them to the wall, then bought them for bugger-all. The Killer Bees they called them, Levesque and Brent Rupert and McColl and Carson, his partners.’

  ‘Where’d the money come from?’

  ‘Asking the important question. Rupert’s family owned Pert Clothing. Big company once. Lots of money. Levesque had bugger all, just brains. His old man was a tram conductor, migrant, Lebanese-French. A West Heidelberg boy, now that’s a hard school. Grew up in an Olympic Village house. They built those places in about three days in ’56. Not too many of the local kids went on to Melbourne Uni and Harvard.’

  ‘Ones I know mostly went on to juvenile detention and Pentridge. How’d you get involved with Levesque?’

  He lit a new cigarette from the old one, offered the packet. I shook my head.

  ‘I knew Brent’s older brother. I did some work on their early acquisitions. Looked over these little transport companies. Pretend to be representing some Queensland outfit. Happens all the time. Then I didn’t hear from them for a while. Came back to me in ’84. I was doing pretty well by then, had a bit of a reputation. Not them though. Their wheels were coming off. The whole enterprise sailing south under all canvas. Brent had milked the Ruperts dry. Pert Clothing was up for sale.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Well, between professional colleagues, they’d got themselves into serious shit, helped by the banks, who thought lending money to a Rupert was a zero-risk proposition. And Brent relied on Levesque. Steven claimed he only needed two minutes with a business’s balance sheet to know everything about the company. On the basis of this talent, they bought crap you would not believe. Harvard MBA. He’s got one, y’know, Steven. Now I laugh when I hear the magic words “Harvard MBA’’. Master of Bugger-All.’

  ‘So they needed accounting advice?’

  Miles laughed until his tic stopped him. ‘Accounting, business advice. Lots of it. My opinion was that the three wonderboys were looking down the barrel at doing some time. Rich, don’t you think? Now one’s the bloody federal A-G, the other one bankrolls the Libs, and I’m doing time for some piddling malfeasance.’

  ‘Very rich,’ I said. ‘What could you do for them?’

  ‘Well, they were trying to unwind some deals, handle some very menacing inquiries from the Tax Department. The big thing was, they’d gone in for a share play, no names, not big by market standards, but much too big for them. A person who must remain nameless because he has people killed, this person convinced them to buy a large number of shares in company X for him. Bought in small parcels over about a year in the names of all these little companies they owned but were registered in Levesque’s mother’s name, his father’s, Rupert’s hippy cousins stoned witless in Nimbin, all kinds of names. But not bought with the nameless person’s money. No, oh no. With the Killer Bees’ own money, borrowed.’

  New cigarette. Through the slit windows, I could see a Lombardy poplar in silhouette against the dying light.

  ‘The deal was,’ said Miles, ‘that when the person makes a takeover bid for the company, Levesque, Rupert and company sell him their holdings off-market. At a discount to the market price but a nice profit over what they paid.’

  ‘What would that amount to?’

  ‘They expected to make six or seven million clear.’

  ‘And didn’t?�
��

  Miles scratched his upper lip. Tic. ‘One morning the shares went into freefall. By the close, the twelve million they’d spent was worth about two. The person, their trusted associate, was unavailable. No longer in the country. Finally, he rings Levesque from somewhere, Egypt I think it was, and says, sorry it didn’t pan out, that’s business. And he offers them two million for their holding.’

  ‘One could almost feel for them.’

  ‘Yes. Well, I talked to the banks for them, got a bit of relief, unwound a few of the loonier deals, but basically they were a basket case. Then Levesque gets me over to HQ in East Melbourne, very pleased with himself.’ He paused. Tic.

  ‘They’ve found a buyer for fifty-one per cent of TransQuik. An American freight outfit called Eagle Exprexxo, based in Tampa, Florida. That’s E-X-P-R-E-X-X-O. For fifty-one per cent, Eagle offers $20-odd million, I can’t remember the exact figure. I remember I started laughing. That valued TransQuik at around $40 million-a company that had never made a profit. And this is 1984, mind you. Serious offer, says Levesque. They see our potential, springboard into the region, etcetera. All that bullshit. I said, let’s see it on paper.’

  ‘What did Levesque want from you if he was such a hotshot business analyst?’

  ‘Nothing. He didn’t want me at all. Brent Rupert wanted me. To look at the deal. It was dawning on him through the coke haze that Levesque was dangerous. Could take a long time for things to dawn on Brent in those days, I can tell you. The short of it is that the next week we have a meeting with two lawyers. One is Rick Shelburne from Sydney. Well, I’d been at the sharp end of a few things by then and the sight of Shelburne made my scrotum shrink. Heard of him?’

  I nodded. ‘Someone said he had a talent for winning over councillors.’

  Miles smiled. Tic. ‘He used to be a spook, my Sydney friend tells me. ASIS. Worked for the Americans in the Philippines. He’s mixed up with very strange things.’

  Tic.

  He looked out of the embrasure at the coming night, moved his lips soundlessly. Faintly glazed look. ‘Hate the nights,’ he said. Tic. Tic. ‘I’m a prison librarian and Rick Shelburne’s presumably on the beach at Noosa. Says a lot about the criminal justice system.’

  Tic.

  ‘And the second lawyer?’ I said.

  He shook himself, looked at his cigarette, extracted a fresh one from the packet. ‘Person you wouldn’t cross either, Carlos something. German-sounding name. I forget.’

  ‘Siebold. Carlos Siebold.’

  ‘Siebold. That’s right. He’s representing the Americans. Well, not directly. There’s a bank in Luxembourg involved, forget that name too.’

  ‘Klostermann Gardier.’

  ‘Correct. Absolutely. The finance will come through them, he says. He wants a new company set up to own TransQuik, a Hong Kong-registered company. The Killer Bees to own forty-nine per cent of that. Another company will own the fifty-one per cent. Not the American company.’

  ‘Not Eagle Exprexxo?’

  ‘No. A company that owns Eagle.’

  ‘Complicated.’

  More laughter and tics. ‘And this Carlos whoever, he says the bank, on behalf of whoever, they’ll lend TransQuik $40 million for acquisitions. Through the Hong Kong holding company. Terms to be discussed.’

  ‘To my untutored ear, an attractive offer.’

  Miles smiled. He had a nice smile, a smile a child would like. ‘Untutored ear. I like that. I’ve been trying to learn to appreciate classical music. Funny how you spend your life. All I ever did was chase money. Never read a book.’

  The glazed look was coming on again, more glazed.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what did you recommend?’

  He blinked, once, twice, focused on me. ‘Yes. Yes. Well. I’m not saying I was a stranger to complicated propositions. Not at all. No. Put up a few of my own by then. Propositions aren’t necessarily bad because they’re complicated. No. The problem is they’re often complicated because they’re bad.’

  Miles smiled, reflected on the wisdom of this statement, looked at the window, eyes narrowed, cigarette burning in his fingers, forgotten, ash fell off, onto the formica.

  We were running out of time: they eat early in the slammers, even the genteel white-collar slammers.

  ‘What advice did you give them, TransQuik?’

  Alert again.

  ‘Sorry, tend to drop off at the end of the day. Early start. I took Levesque and Rupert and McColl into the next room. I said to them, nobody offers deals like this. This is like the fax from Nigeria offering you free money. Rupert was nodding, he agreed. McColl was watching Levesque like a puppydog, watched Levesque like that all the time. Levesque smiles, McColl smiles. He’d fart in front of the Queen if Levesque went first. Well, Levesque gives me a hard look. He didn’t like my opinion at all. “We’ve checked these people out,’’ he said. “We’re happy.’’’

  The warder came in, still worried that his collection of lawyers and accountants and pyramid salesmen and shirt-lifting priests were going to storm the walls. ‘Five minutes maximum, Mr Irish.’

  Miles said, ‘I told Levesque the offer was outside my experience. He says, he’s looking at me like a hungry animal, he says, “What, you want to consult an accountant? Our accountant needs his own accountant?’’ I said, “No, I’m suggesting some caution.’’ You know what he said?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Levesque looked at me, he’s got a smile where he opens his lips slowly, you see more and more teeth. Then he said: “Fuck off, Dixon, whatever your name is. Double-barrelled bullshit artist. You’re small-time. You’ll always be small-time. You’re not required. Piss off. Get out.’’’

  We didn’t have much time left. ‘Did they take the offer?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘They paid off all debts, squared the Tax Department, unloaded the shares. Then, about nine, ten months later, the buying spree started-Leeton Stevedoring, Pacargo Air, that’s a freight airline in Papua New Guinea. Travel agencies. Truck stops. Got a new CEO, too. An American, he’d be the new owner’s man.’

  ‘How would you rate your judgment now? Good deal for Levesque and his partners?’

  Miles was tired. Tic. A still facial moment. Tic.

  ‘I hate the bastard, concede that,’ he said. ‘My judgment was to take care. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have said go for it when we knew more. But as it stood it wasn’t a deal. It was an offer of money. Question is, what kind of money is it? You need to know.’

  ‘What kind did you think it was?’

  ‘I’m a bit of a stickybeak. I tried to run down Eagle Exprexxo. Had a bit of experience with Cook Islands, Caymans, places like that. In the end all I got was that Eagle had a link with a Manila company, the name’s gone…’

  What was the name Stuart Wardle had given Tony Rinaldi to put to Siebold? It came to me.

  ‘Arcaro Transport?’

  ‘Absolutely. Arcaro. And both of them, they both had links with another company part-owned by a company owned by these two trusts. It’s complicated stuff. You need to draw it on paper. Anyhow, I got nowhere. Then I asked a mate of mine in Sydney, knows everything this fellow, gave him the names. He got back, he says, “This is The Connection. Walk back, walk back very, very carefully.’’’

  ‘The Connection.’

  Rapid nods, smile, no tics, another puffing cigarette combustion transfer. ‘The Connection. I’d never heard of it. My friend says, doesn’t mince his words, “Don’t fuck with these people, Miles,’’ he says, “it’s the good old boys from Manila.’’’

  Behind me, silent entry like a butler, the warder coughed. ‘I’m afraid that’s it, Mr Irish.’

  Impeccable screw behaviour in this place. Not like screws at all. Perhaps there were front-of-house screws, with the real screws inside.

  Miles put out his hand. His lethargy was gone, replaced by a feverishness. ‘I didn’t ask any more questions. Listen, come back, I’ve got other interesting stories. Tell Alan, tell him, te
ll him I don’t forget. I’ll show him that when I get out of here. Good man, excellent person. Alan. Yes.’

  I came out of the neat jail, a jail designed to look like a motel, a compulsory-stop motel, and aimed the Lotus down the highway. A long day entering its twilight, a day following a night rich with unpleasant surprises. I felt invigorated, mind fresh. Perhaps the adrenaline pump wouldn’t shut down? Was I to be permanently primed for fight or flight until I simply fell over?

  Sticking on the speed limit in the red Lotus from Basement 1, I thought about Miles Crewe-Dixon and his facial tic. Miles and Steven Levesque. TransQuik and Eagle Exprexxo of Tampa, Florida. Stuart Wardle and Arcaro Transport and Major-General Ibell and Charles deFoster Winter. Gary Connors and Klostermann Gardier. Steven Levesque and Klostermann Gardier and The Connection. Good old boys from Manila.

  The Connection. Good old boys from Manila.

  Brent Rupert, he was one of the bosses, he used to go to Manila and to America with Gary.

  That was what Chrissy Donato-Connors-Sargent had said.

  What had Lyall said about Stuart Wardle?

  He was big on the Philippines, working on a book on the subject.

  Good old boys from Manila.

  I tried to remember what Simone Bendsten had told me, couldn’t recall a word. It seemed like a month had passed. I’d been too tired to register anything.

  Ring her. No.

  Then I remembered: her unread report was in the secret compartment of my desk.

  46

  In and out quickly. They wouldn’t be expecting me to come back to my office, not at night and alone.

  I found an illegal park a hundred metres down the street and was in the office inside a minute, didn’t put on the light, had the envelope in my hands in thirty seconds. Out the front door, turned the key in the deadlock.

  Rain like mist, tarmac shining. Light on across the way in McCoy’s studio, some artistic atrocity being committed. On the pavement, a steel rubbish skip. How did McCoy decide which of his efforts to throw away? Toss a coin?