by Zane Lovitt
Zane Lovitt lives in Melbourne. The Midnight Promise is his first book.
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The Text Publishing Company
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Melbourne Victoria 3000
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Copyright © Zane Lovitt 2012
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
First published in 2012 by The Text Publishing Company
Cover by WH Chong
Page design by Imogen Stubbs
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press, an Accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printers
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Lovitt, Zane.
Title: The midnight promise : a detective’s story in ten cases /Zane Lovitt.
ISBN: 9781921922930 (pbk.)
ISBN: 9781921961182 (ebook)
Subjects: Detective and mystery stories.
Dewey Number: A823.4
Table of Contents
AMNESTY
AN ORDINARY JOB
KAHRAMAN
COMEDY IS DEAD
DARK DAY
DEATH AT LE SHACK
THE CRYBABY TECHNIQUE
GRANDMA’S HOUSE
LEAVING THE FOUNTAINHEAD
TROY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to express his appreciation to the following people for their generosity and support:
Margaret Lovitt
Colin and Marcus Lovitt
Mieko Higano
the Freeman family, especially Larry
Simon Saunders
Craig Robertson
Michael De Robbio
and Nic Frame
A special thank you to Mandy Brett, and a very special thank you to a girl who used to be called Katie Freeman.
‘Leaving the Fountainhead’ won the SD Harvey Short Story Award at the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writing. It was first published in New Australian Stories 2 by Scribe Publications in 2010.
‘Death at Le Shack’ was first published in The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine in February 2012.
‘Kahraman’ was first published in The One That Got Away by Dark Prints Press in 2012.
PROLOGUE
YOU DON’T MAKE promises to do what I do. Not those fat professional promises that doctors make, to do no harm and to wash their hands. Lawyers get sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in the Supreme Court. All I had to do was climb the stairs of a grey government building in Richmond, get my photo taken by a woman with mottled skin who didn’t know how to operate the camera. She swore at it and smiled nervously, shot looks at the windows like if it weren’t for the bars across them she’d be jumping out of one.
The technical word for that, the one you sometimes see in police reports, is ‘defenestration’.
She got the camera working but then the laminator broke. It didn’t occur to me that I should see this as some kind of omen; I was too guileless back then, too busy feeling embarrassed for her, which made her more embarrassed, which made me more embarrassed. There we were, locked in an embarrassment loop, when she suddenly broke out in a shrill falsetto voice like a kindergarten teacher, singing: ‘Today will be an awesome daaaaaaay…’
Someone came and fixed the laminator.
You don’t make any promises, you get your photo taken and they laminate it for you. After that, you’re a private investigator. I don’t even remember signing anything.
Last of all, you leave that grey building in Richmond with a shiny blue pamphlet that tells you all the things you should and shouldn’t do now that you’re licensed. That pamphlet says, in bold red italics, You can work effectively without breaking the law. Statistically, I have not found this to be true. Another thing it says in bold red italics is: Be sure to invest a portion of every payment in a superannuation fund. You read this pamphlet and you think, whoever wrote this, bold red italics is what they use when they’re feeling optimistic.
The truth is, I’ve had to scrounge and hustle for every dollar I’ve made. Maybe that’s why doctors and lawyers are forced to take oaths. It’s a ceremonious way of saying, you’re going to make a fortune. Try to have some standards.
But the work can help you keep perspective. Last year I was hired to investigate a man so poor his neighbours conspired to have him evicted. They said he drove down the market value of their homes. My job was to find something on him, some form of illegality that would be grounds for a notice to vacate: his flat was public housing and governments love to evict people for illegal use, it makes them look tough on crime. After a month of looking I gathered all these neighbours together like Hercule Poirot and explained that the guy wasn’t dealing drugs or fencing goods or managing an unlicensed brothel. There was nothing criminal about his hairy face or the tattered clothes he dried on his balcony or his obsessive hoarding of Green Guides.
They didn’t like to hear it, but some of it must have sunk in. Because even today I can drive past those flats and see the same tired underwear flapping in the breeze.
His name was Arthur Carreidas and I caught head lice from him.
You don’t have to make promises to do what I do, but I have made one. This was a long time after I got my licence. After I started the drinking and after I was kicked out of my home and after my head got stuck all the way up my arse. I made my promise in a border town in the middle of nowhere, at what was literally my darkest hour. There was even a clock tower chiming midnight, right at the moment I said the words, if you believe it.
The promise I made was that I’d never let it become about me. Or at least, never again.
My mother used to say that in her day a midnight promise was one you made to get what you wanted, not one you actually ever kept. Like what a man says to a woman to get her undressed, or the stuff you say to God when your plane flies through heavy turbulence. I still wonder if I’ll really hold to what I swore that night. But I have so far. And it’s been years.
I used to lug my stories around with me like caged birds, screeching and crapping and demanding all my attention. I dwelt on my stories, which means I dwelt on myself. And sure, everybody does that, but I was the Super Heavyweight Champion. I was the CEO.
And that’s what this is. This is the tumbling road to a single moment that changed all that.
Now, when I think about the future, it’s no longer a smorgasbord of the ugly things people do to each other. It’s my friend Demetri shouting me a lemonade, or slinging me a job. It’s earning enough to put flowers on my mother’s grave. It’s helping people like Arthur Carreidas.
I know, I know. I should write all this down in bold red italics.
I see the future that way because of the promise I made to myself. I think about it often, perhaps every day. The worst stories may be yet to come, but that pledge is what allows me to say, without irony, without adopting a shrill, falsetto voice: Let’s see.
AMNESTY
I’M SITTING ON the floor of my one-room flat reading the newspaper when Demetri arrives. This is my local paper, the Western Gazette, the kind any suburb has in its laundromats and fish and chip shops, and I’ve been flicking through it, killing time, mentally urging Demetri to hurry up. He knows
the way to my office, he’s been there about a thousand times. He’s never been to my home.
‘Nice place,’ he says as he steps inside. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’
Standing here with his brand-name shirt and his gold wristwatch, Demetri looks like a wealthy parent visiting a college dorm. Eyes travel over the coffee mugs in the sink, the oven full of recycling, the bathroom that reeks of mildew, that’s also a wardrobe. He fights a knowing smile, loses that battle when his eyes come back to me.
‘How’s the private detective business coming along then?’
‘I’m doing all right.’
‘Are you sure? This is like a shanty town I saw once in the Philippines.’
‘I guess some of us are resigned to not being a rich bastard.’
‘You should be working for a firm, doing something behind the scenes. Mendes Duke or somewhere like that. Nice discreet little card, John Dorn, Corporate Paralegal.’ Demetri shrugs theatrically. His combed grey locks cling to his scalp, unmoving. ‘But okay. So long as you’re resigned to it…’
On the open page of the Western Gazette in front of me there’s a full-page ad for novelty greeting cards. One of the cards says: ‘Congratulations! You Finally Got a Real Job!’ You know a lot of parents buy that one. Parents, and people who talk to you like they’re your parents.
‘How’s single life treating you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Have you even had a girlfriend since what’s-her-name?’
Demetri remembers her name. Pretending to forget is how he expresses his support. It’s how he quietly says, ‘Good riddance.’
‘Been too busy with work, I suppose…’
I smile at the meaninglessness of my response and he gives a meaningless hum of conclusion.
‘If you’ve asked me here to help with Anton Goldberg…’ Demetri says, strolling to the centre of the room and wheeling around to face me. He’s got his tough scowl on to show how serious he is. ‘John, he’s a waste of time. Take it from someone who knows all about wasting time on criminals. Anton’s one of the ones who enjoys prison.’
Last month, Anton Goldberg was charged with robbing a drycleaner in a western suburbs shopping centre called Highpoint. Anyone who doesn’t live around here calls it Knifepoint and, sure enough, Anton was armed with a long machete, the kind you’d use to clear a path through the jungle. He’s got more prior convictions than brain cells which means he won’t get bail, so he’s wallowing in the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall, trying to find a lawyer who’ll argue that society is to blame.
‘If someone had bloody fucken taught me to read,’ Anton declaimed on a crackling phone line from Ravenhall, ‘then I would have seen the bloody fucken sign that said Security Personnel Patrol This fucken Area. Then I bloody fucken never would of bloody knocked the fucken place over.’
For some reason, criminals in the western suburbs have a reputation for being slow-witted.
I told Anton his case was weak but he insists on going to trial and he’s asking for my help. What’s good about someone being in jail is, you can’t return their calls.
But Anton Goldberg isn’t the reason I’ve asked Demetri to my flat on a dull and windy Sunday afternoon.
‘So why am I here?’ he asks. He seems to be thinking about sitting in my brown armchair, but it’s old and sticky and he doesn’t trust it. ‘Did you want me to help you burn your furniture?’
‘I’ve got something amazing to show you. But first I need a favour. A big one. There’s no money in it.’
‘Of course,’ he says, and the classic Demetri smile breaks through his tough scowl. He loves to be asked for favours; helping people is his nature. I suspect that as a criminal lawyer he doesn’t get to help people as often as his nature demands.
Now he tries to get the scowl back, managing only an amiable pout. ‘But John, don’t you think you should get remunerated every now and then?’
‘I make money. Not enough to spend on my wardrobe, if that’s what you mean. Did you come straight from your club?’
Demetri glances down at his outfit, his tapered trousers and silk socks. It’s the kind of casual wear that says, I’d rather be wearing a suit.
‘So what’s this amazing thing?’ he asks. ‘Are you going to put on a clean shirt?’
‘I need you to come for a walk with me.’
He recoils, turns to the window. What he can see, past other blocks of flats, is a grey sky that’s mustering rain. Demetri makes a face. ‘Is that necessary?’
‘I finally get to show you around my neighbourhood.’
‘Is that the favour? Putting up with that, at my age?’
‘No. The favour is for someone Anton met inside. Someone you don’t know. His name’s Gary Blanche.’
Demetri wilts. ‘And I suppose he’s developed an equally brilliant line of legal reasoning to support his not-guilty plea.’
‘He’s only just gone into remand. He hasn’t made a plea yet.’
‘And whatever the charge is, he assures you it’s a massive miscarriage of justice with the rights of freedom for corruption and victims, innocent, travesty, persecution, outrage, more justice and then injustice.’
I grab the newspaper I was reading, fold it and tuck it gently into my jacket pocket.
‘You’ll see,’ I say.
Demetri gets an overcoat from his car and together we hike silently into the wind. Footscray is the delta where trucks pour out of the city and spread across the west of Melbourne, so living here means slowly drowning in exhaust and the yawn of diesel engines and bored drivers who watch you in their rearview mirrors. It’s what keeps housing cheap and makes somewhere so close to the CBD a home for half of Melbourne’s migrant population. Sundays here are like low tide on a coral reef: every shape and colour of life is on parade, hollering into mobile phones and undertaking their own serious mission, just like me and Demetri. I steer him away from the stir of Paisley Street and south under the rail overpass and he’s happy, at least for now, not to know where we’re going.
I tell Demetri about Gary Blanche.
‘He’s up on three counts of possession of a prohibited weapon. The police found the guns in his house a week ago after a tip-off. Gary’s lawyer told Gary who told me that the prosecutor’s after a custodial sentence of one year per count, not concurrent.’
I can’t tell if Demetri’s grimace is because of the wind or because of Gary Blanche’s sad prospects. We turn left onto Broadfield Avenue.
‘That sounds right,’ he says, wrapping his coat tighter. ‘It’s part of the State Government’s crackdown on getting re-elected. New penalties for possessing firearms, proposed by none other than Her Highness the DPP. She’s talking about running for preselection and she wants to look tougher on crime than any of the blokes. But those laws only commenced a fortnight ago. When did your friend get charged?’
‘Last Friday.’
Demetri exhales theatrically. ‘Sounds to me like he’s the winner of this month’s unluckiest bastard competition.’
‘Gary got my number from Anton and he called me from Ravenhall. He told me he’d been in there once before, for possessing stolen goods, and he didn’t think he could last another stretch. I’ve never met him face to face, but from the sound of his voice I’d say something terrible happened the first time he was inside and he’s frightened out of his mind it’ll happen again.’
‘I can see where this is going,’ Demetri shakes his head. ‘Perhaps Ravenhall shouldn’t be the kind of place it is. But do you think he wasn’t planning something terrible himself, John? I mean, what was he doing with the guns?’
‘Exactly’, I say. ‘That is exactly what Gary asked me to find out.’
We turn right onto Farrel Street, a stretch of run-down weatherboard homes and blocks of flats that smell of urine and all seem to slump against each other like penguins in the Antarctic. The ones that have gardens really only have weeds that seep into the cracks in the concrete paths and across abandoned
playthings and up to the windows, threatening to breach the walls and ravage the people inside. The dogs that bark at us from behind torn wire fences rattle their chains and demand to know how they ended up living here. The street is deserted because it’s the kind of place where you don’t spend a lot of time outside. Even when it’s not as bitterly cold as today.
‘What are you talking about?’ Demetri demands. If he was out of place in my flat, he’s more than out of place here. He doesn’t seem to notice. ‘He asked you to…what?’
‘Gary wants me to find out where the guns came from. And before you ask, yeah, I’m working for free.’
Demetri squeezes his eyes shut. ‘He doesn’t know where they came from?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Does he live alone?’
‘He lives with his father, Gary Senior, but Gary Senior’s in a wheelchair and he never leaves the house. They weren’t his guns.’
‘So, your friend’s story is that they materialised, inexplicably, within the home?’
‘Sort of. Gary Junior’s just begun an apprenticeship as an auto-electrician, and with a record like his it’s hard to find work, which means he’s hysterically happy to get the job and he doesn’t want to mess it up. So he goes to work every day an hour before everyone else, just to show them how committed he is, and he’s leaving the house bright and early one morning when he opens the front door and finds a point-three-five calibre Beretta, pre–World War Two, sitting right there on the porch steps. From what I’ve managed to find out, it’s a pretty rare gun. Valuable.’
‘A Beretta? All by itself?’
‘That’s right.’
‘No note from one of his classy friends who collects antiques?’
‘Nothing else. It wasn’t even loaded.’
‘Right,’ says Demetri, moving from confusion to disbelief. He steps around a puddle on the footpath. Nobody clears the gutters on this street and there’s dead foliage clogging up the drains—Demetri’s shoes don’t look like the kind you get wet. ‘So, of course, he took it straight to the police.’
