by Chris Krupa
‘I didn’t kill him,’ I said. ‘I’ve never killed anyone, and I hope to fuck I never do.’
The words came out harder than I anticipated, and Lyons visibly flinched.
Reggie nervously rotated a pen in his hands and cleared his throat. ‘Uh, Matt – ‘
Lyons raised his hands. ‘I didn’t mean any offense. I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I hate cops, is all. Can we start again with a clean slate?’
Reggie glanced at me nervously.
I took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘Sure thing, Mr. Lyons.’ I gave him a look that told him the comment wasn’t entirely forgotten, and noted that he hadn’t exactly apologised for the remark.
Lyons chortled as if I’d been the one who overstepped the mark. ‘Call me Jeff.’
His attempt at light-heartedness fell flat, and we all lapsed into an awkward silence. Reggie sighed and bulged his eyes at me.
Lyons caught it. ‘Tell you what, boys. I’ll give you a minute to talk it over. Then we can abscond to a watering hole, just you and me, Matt. What do you say? Know any good ones round here?’
So now it’s ‘Matt’ and ‘Jeff’, chummy as all get out.
Reggie shifted in his seat. ‘Mr. Lyons, of course, what you say in this office is held in the utmost confidence...’
Lyons levelled his gaze at Reggie. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Reg, I’ve had too much dirty laundry aired in the press over the years, thanks to nosey parkers and dodgy lawyers. No offence.’
Reggie smiled flatly. ‘None taken. The North Gong hotel is close. It’s an esteemed local establishment.’
‘As long as the beer’s wet,’ Lyons muttered.
As Reggie found things to straighten on his desk, I provided Lyons with directions to the hotel.
As soon as Lyons took his leave, Reggie stood up but remained behind his desk. ‘You are taking this on. He’s willing to put up a four-thousand-dollar retainer.’
‘I don’t appreciate being called a murderer.’
‘Technically, he didn’t call you a murderer.’
‘What were the charges, Reg?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He said you got him off. What were the charges?’
Reggie looked away and put his hands on his hips. He tucked the end of his tie into his buttoned up, single-breasted jacket. It immediately slipped out, and he tucked it in again. ‘Suspected insider trading. Strictly white collar and nothing traceable to Lyons. I swear.’
I sighed, and Reggie put his hands to his face.
When he spoke again, his voice was muffled. ‘Don’t make this a moral quandary, Matt. We’re satisfying the client’s wants and needs. He wants to pay us and we need the money. Am I right?’
‘Haven’t you heard of scruples, Reggie?’
‘If I was a wise ass, I’d say of course I have—it’s a card game from the eighties.’ He waved a hand around the office. ‘Matt, listen, when I graduated law school, I never dreamed of having an office full of broken down, refurbished phones and shitty old computers, okay? Look at me. I’ve worn the same three suits for the past eighteen years. We live on chicken feed, and now you have your first real high-profile client and you don’t want to take it on because he hurt your feelings? Don’t you think we’ve afforded ourselves a little cash bonus?’
He had a point. Cash Hendrix Specialist Law Firm was an ironic name. Neither Reggie Cash nor Tony Hendrix were specialists in anything. Reggie poured all his money into the brass plaque with his name on it, and the offices retained their original pine doorframes and sparse fittings, thanks to the prior business, a private and highly suspicious bookkeeping service, going into receivership. Too small for Sydney and too lackadaisical for Melbourne, Reggie had settled in The Gong with a preference for pro bono work. His high commission rate attracted me when I started out. His unreservedness and wicked sense of humour also attracted me. I’d closed four insurance claims in the first three weeks, and when my savings account didn’t go up, I’d threatened to knock the caps off Reggie’s front teeth. A deposit appeared the next morning, with cream on top.
‘Incentive’, Reggie had said.
A guilty conscience, I’d thought.
I sighed and nodded. ‘Okay, Reggie, I’ll talk to Lyons. I just need to feel him out.’
Reggie slapped his hands together so forcefully, hair on his crown flipped in the air. ‘Attaboy, Matty! Attaboy!’
I quickly got out of there and strolled to the car park. A strong easterly blew a hazy layer of salt over the city, and two levels of rainclouds raced across the sky at different speeds. I spotted a Nissan Rogue that belonged to Garrick, a fellow investigator known for consorting with various underworld figures.
He sat in the driver’s seat eating a meatball sub, and he gave me the finger.
I shot him the cornutto in return, a common hand gesture used by Italians, similar to the ‘devil horns’ hand gesture heavy metal fans made, only reversed.
‘Vaffanculo,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Fuck you’, in other words.
When I kicked the ute over, The Church’s ‘Unguarded Moment’ came through the speakers, and I sang with Steve Kilbey about girls with rifles for hearts. I pulled out onto the highway and weaved through midday traffic to the North Wollongong hotel, and parked the car at the rear under a row of coral trees. Their bright red flowers blanketed the car park, reminding me of the pool of blood under Paul Green’s body.
Lyons’ words played over in my head, and my chest tightened.
Because you did the world a favour and killed a fucking cop.
I got out and retrieved the flask of whiskey I kept in a toolbox in the ute tray, took a good belt, and lay the flask back in its rightful spot above my trusty crowbar, ‘Old Blue’. Lyons had pissed me off with the murderer comment and I’d bitten back. I promised myself I wouldn’t be so quick to react next time, and hoped the whiskey took its effect on my empty stomach.
The pub, once a mucky smoke-filled den hosting local grunge acts, now appealed to middle class beach goers, with its stainless-steel bar and concertina doors opened to the Illawarra escarpment.
Lyons occupied a drinking table close to the bar, and two schooners of beer sat on the table in front of him.
I negotiated two large pool tables, squeezed past eight loud tradesmen in high vis vests enjoying a drink around a table, and joined Lyons. We both sipped our beers, a boutique pale ale that tasted like honey and pepper.
I tried to hide my distaste. ‘Thanks for the beer. Tell me more about Tamsin.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Full name, date of birth, that sort of thing.’
Her full name was Tamsin Amelia Lyons, twenty-one, starting her second year studying a Bachelor of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney.
Nice gig if you could afford it, no doubt financed by Daddy dearest.
Lyons took a long pull on his beer, and now sitting closer to him, I noticed the creases in his face, deep enough as to be completely black. His face wore a thousand bites of hard liquor. He took out his phone and showed me a photo of a tall, young woman with long, straight, strawberry-blonde hair. She missed pretty but hit attractive dead on—round jaw, cautious smile, straight nose.
‘She doesn’t do this sort of thing,’ Lyons said. ‘She always answers her phone, doesn’t go anywhere without it. You know kids these days. I never used to talk to her much. Ever since she turned eighteen, I wanted to get to know her better. I’ve practically called her every day since. Last time we spoke was twelve days ago. She rang me, actually.’
‘How did she sound? Was everything okay?’
‘Yeah, right as rain. We just talked about the usual stuff. She told me about the new session at uni and the units she needed to complete. She was looking forward to cadaver work—cutting open dead animals, that sort of thing. Now her phone rings out and no one at the university has seen her. They haven’t got a clue.’
‘Does she have a boyfriend?’
/> ‘No. Well, not that I know of. You have to understand... as much as I keep in touch, she never confides in me. I think she likes keeping me at arm’s length.’
‘Why’s that?’
Lyons shifted in his seat and took another pull on the beer. ‘I married young. We couldn’t have kids and it fell apart. I remarried—Yvette’s her name—and was surprised when Tamsin came along. I was forty-nine, with no time for kids—too busy brokering deals to change dirty nappies. I never was a home body, really. Never was a new agey Dad. It’s woman’s work. No place for a bloke, is it?’
I’d changed as many of my daughter’s nappies as my ex-wife Dee, so of course I didn’t think it was ‘woman’s work’. I took a breath, remembered my promise to myself, and paid him half a shrug.
Lyons shook his head. ‘I’ve got this horrible feeling something’s happened to her.’
He made a strangled sound and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders started to shake. He pulled some serviettes from a dispenser and, when he removed his hands, he’d severely reddened in the face. I worried for him as he blew his nose in four rapid successions, wiped it three times, and scrunched the serviettes into a ball.
‘Jeff,’ I said, ‘I know it must hard. My daughter, Alice, is eleven. I don’t know what I’d do if she went missing.’
‘I’m turning into a bloody sook, is all. Never get old, Matt. Never get old. I watch these crime shows—you know the ones—where they show little kids getting killed? I turn into a blubbering mess. Can’t help it.’ He took a sharp intake of breath and glanced at the empty schooner glasses. ‘I’ll get the next round.’
As Lyons carried fresh schooners back from the bar, one of the tradesman, a short, broad man with mixed Malaysian and Polynesian features and long black hair tied in a ponytail, brushed past me on his way to the bar. The man caught Lyons on the elbow, and beer splashed down the front of Lyons’ trousers.
Lyons roared, ‘You fucking gook cunt!’
Fury flashed across the tradesman’s face and he raised an arm.
I stepped in, deflected his punch with my forearm, and got him around the neck. I brought him back with me until we hit the wall by the bar, then swivelled. I brought him with me, wrestled him into position, and pinned him against the wall, my arm against the back of his neck.
‘You don’t want to hit him, mate,’ I said. ‘Look at him. You lay into him, he’s likely to have a heart attack. You don’t want to be dragged into all of that shit, do you? Police, court, charges... a conviction? Just give him a few years, and he’ll be pushing up daisies.’
The tradesman relented, and I let him go. He straightened his shirt and eyeballed Lyons. ‘You’re fucking lucky you’ve got a mate looking out for you, you fucking racist prick.’
Lyons was too busy soaking up the stains with serviettes to notice the man’s ire.
I returned to my seat and met Lyon’s eyes. For the first time since I met him, he appeared sheepish, and it was clearly not a look he was used to making.
He huffed. ‘Doc’s got me on these new meds for my heart. Some of them give me the shits. They said it would, but I didn’t think it’d be this bad. I appreciate you taking care of that, the way you did. You’re a bit old school. I appreciate that.’
He scratched his cheek. ‘Did Reggie tell you how much I’m willing to pay?’
I nodded. ‘My standard daily rate is three hundred dollars plus expenses.’
‘Does that mean you’ll look for Tamsin?’
‘Yes. Of course, I will.’
He offered his hand and I took it. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
I produced a folded copy of my contract from my jeans but Lyons waved it away.
‘I want to give you some upfront money—a sign of goodwill.’ He reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out a wad of fifties, slowly peeled off a pile, and sat them on the table.
I counted seven hundred and fifty dollars.
‘I’m having a launch party,’ he said, ‘Friday night at The Pavilion on the Domain. Mention me at the door and they’ll let you in. You’ll fucking love it—free champers, sexy girls. Margot Robbie on satellite. Forty-five grand for three minutes. Drives a hard bargain, that girl. I’ll introduce you to my PA, Evelyn. She’ll take care of the paperwork. She’s Tamsin’s aunty and probably closer to Tamsin than me and her mother.’
He gave me the address for the launch party, and I typed a memo into my phone.
He skolled the rest of his schooner and shot a cuff to reveal what appeared to be a Rolex, not that I’ve ever seen one in real life. ‘I have to love you and leave you. Got an oncologist’s appointment in Darlinghurst at four.’ He placed a business card on the table. ‘Call me anytime, Matt.’
He hustled out, and left me in a unique situation. It had only just gone past midday, too early to eat and too early to get on the beer, which left me time to sit and ponder things. Lyons admitted to being a distant, hands-off father, so why was he so worried now? Odds favoured Tamsin running off with a boyfriend for a couple of weeks, but....
I had a feeling like fleas in my collar, and I couldn’t finger where the feeling came from, or why.
Chapter 2
~~~
On Friday afternoon, I packed a change of clothes, a razor, and deodorant into an overnight bag, and booked the cheapest room I could find in Sydney. I made a sweeping pass of my galley kitchen, picked up my laptop, said goodbye to my flat for the night, and drove north on the Princes Highway.
I arrived in the CBD of Sydney just before eight, parked the ute at the Domain parking station, and walked across the parklands to The Pavilion on the Domain. I found it tucked away in a corner of the parklands, nestled in amongst Moreton bay fig trees planted in the late eighteen hundreds.
The white cement-rendered building had large glass windows facing the city skyline, and a crowd of people enjoyed thumping music and coloured lights. A gold lettered sign on a pedestal advertised the launch party for ‘Peekaboo.’ At the entrance to the main building, two bouncers, a Maori, and a short man with stubble and an extremely protruding chin, wore tuxedos and monitored those going in.
The guy with the stubble looked me up and down as I approached. ‘Evenin’, sir. I see your invite, please?’ He had a British accent.
‘Unfortunately, I don’t have one,’ I said. ‘Mr. Lyons invited me personally. He said to mention him by name.’
He scoffed. ‘You and a hundred other geezers. And you are?’
‘Matt Kowalski.’
‘Don’t ring no bells. Invite only. Sorry buddy.’
The Maori turned slightly. ‘Gav, leave it out, man.’
‘Am I fucking talking to you, bra?’
The Maori turned back and faced forward.
Gav snapped his eyes back to me, and I made sure to hold his gaze. He was over a foot shorter than me, and radiated a coiled, barely contained anger.
I spoke slowly, as if to a child. ‘Mr. Lyons hired me to investigate a personal matter.’
‘You taking the mickey out of me, cunt?’
I gave him the Kowalski stare. ‘I need to get inside.’
He said, ‘Right,’ and went to grab my arm.
I pulled away, and he eyeballed me intensely. It suddenly felt as if we were strange dogs in a new neighbourhood, sniffing each other out.
When a smiling, well-dressed couple distracted Gav, I made the most of the opportunity, and took ten paces back and left him shaking and breathing hard through his nose. I called Lyons’ mobile and told him the situation.
Soon Gav’s mobile rang. He snatched it out from the inside of his jacket, and listened with a red face. Once he hung up, he eyed me and muttered, ‘You’d better get in there, then.’
Inside, three large flatscreens flashed a pink and black graphic on a loop, which read ‘Peekaboo’, followed by a package of images and footage of mostly American content. I found Lyons at the long, curved bar.
He beamed when he saw me. ‘Help yourself to a drink. I need to take ca
re of a couple of things. Evelyn’s over there.’ He pointed to a tall, thin, curly-haired woman at the end of the bar, and immediately made a beeline to a couple dressed as if they were fresh from the golfing range.
Before I could move, a tall woman no older than twenty, wearing a black baseball cap and a pink jumpsuit with the font zipper dangerously low, slid next to me. Her perfume hit me a second later. ‘Say goodbye to Netflix. Peekaboo offers three exclusive channels devoted to the finest of adult entertainment, including a twenty-four-hour channel featuring AVN award-winning features, a niche channel devoted to selected fetishes, and a retro channel showing classics from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. For tonight, only we are offering twelve months risk free. Sign up online to access your obligation-free account.’ She handed me a pink and black card with the Peekaboo logo on it.
‘Thank you.’
The cocktail of sweet shampoo, freshly soaped skin, and perfectly lacquered lips were indeed a strong force to work against. She smiled, then moved onto the next man.
I noticed many other young, lithe women, dressed the same, posed with middle-aged men for photos. I wondered why they were attracted to this sort of work. Were they drawn to the highlife and the rich? Did they like profiting from their feminine wiles? Maybe it was just a job.
I navigated the crowd toward Evelyn, and as I approached her, I was struck by her height. She wore high, tight pants, which exaggerated her thin waistline and her hips, what she had of them. Bony décolletage and a delicate silver necklace showed through a white camis tank top, and her slender feet sported open-toed silver shoes. Her bright red lipstick was astonishing next to her milky white skin, and her curly, thick hair was shiny and parted in the middle.
