by Zane Lovitt
‘Poor guy. Just when business is taking off.’
‘And watch your mouth with him. Frank’s been good for me and he can be good for you. Don’t butcher the cash cow.’
Lining the gravel path to the front door is a row of tropical plants and there’s a manicured lawn around a massive concrete fountain. The place feels like those expensive resorts in Fiji you see on travel shows but could never afford to actually visit. It has an hilariously ironic name, Le Shack, written out in a collage of bathroom tiles at the entrance to the driveway and again on the patio wall. At the base of the fountain there’s a life-size mermaid carved into the cement, her tail dipping into the rustling pool as water rains around her, and the expression on her face is like this mermaid thing is getting stale.
Someone who must be Frank Tenant opens the door wearing nothing but a pair of slippers and bright orange speedos. He says, ‘It’s about bloody time. Let’s get this done before she stinks up the place.’
You can tell Frank’s from London, though most of his accent has faded. He turns and strides ahead of me into the living room, hairy skin glistening with sunscreen. He’s like a fifty-year-old teapot, short and stout, and he parades proudly before me as well as his two extant guests, Trevor and Nancy.
Franks introduces them and says, ‘Trevor’s my lawyer.’
Trevor wears black clothes and gold jewellery, his grey hair is expertly maintained. I’ve met his type before—the rock and roll lawyer. He nods to me and goes back to his magazine.
‘If he’s your lawyer then why did you call Demetri?’
Frank grins, puts on a gangster’s voice: ‘Trevor don’t do this kind of law.’
I’m guessing that Nancy is Trevor’s wife, but Frank doesn’t bother to say so. She’s ten years younger than both of them and sits in an armchair by the window, dressed in a fur coat and maybe nothing else. She seems to watch me indifferently, but I can’t see her eyes through those enormous sunglasses.
Next to her are french doors leading to a balcony overlooking Red Bluff and, further along, Sandringham beach. It’s a calm, sunny afternoon. Two people on kayaks are splashing each other with their paddles. There’s a cruise ship out on the horizon, as airy and opulent as the room where I’m standing. Only in here there’s a dead girl on the couch.
She’s stretched out on her side, facing away from me, one hand drooped over the armrest. Her skin is pale but you wouldn’t say deathly. Not yet. You might think she’d fallen asleep in her expensive evening gown if it weren’t for how she’s not breathing.
Frank says, ‘Demetri told you what I need you for?’
‘I’m supposed to keep an eye on the cops.’
‘Exactly. Some chick ODs on my couch, it’s not an invitation for the pigs to waltz in here and turn this place into their own playground-by-the-sea. They stitched me up once before, and now they’re making a habit of it. That dago on the news? That is some corrupt shit. So they need to get the message that I’m onto them. Are you up to that?’
I lean over to look at the dead girl.
‘Are you up to it?’ Frank insists.
Her dress is small and revealing, but leaves enough to the imagination to mean she was good at her job. Probably a thousand, twelve hundred a night. She’s pretty enough.
‘John, I’m talking to you.’
The pretty ones make me the saddest. I know that shouldn’t make a difference.
I ask, ‘What name did she use?’
Frank pouts, annoyed, looks over at Nancy to see if she’ll reciprocate. She gives him nothing. He says, ‘Cindy.’
On the coffee table next to Cindy is a used ashtray, a lighter and a foil satchel, probably with more heroin in it. The needle is on the floor.
‘Do you know where she got the gear from?’
‘No idea.’
‘You weren’t with her when she bought it?’
‘God, no. Why on earth would…We didn’t even know she had the stuff, your honour.’
‘Frank never has anything to do with drugs. I can vouch for that.’
This is Trevor, not looking up from his magazine, mechanically reciting his talking points.
To Frank I say, ‘And you weren’t here when it happened?’
‘Nope. She was watching TV when we left.’
‘After you came back, did you touch anything? Move her in any way?’
‘We turned off the TV.’
‘How did you know she was dead?’
Frank scoffs. ‘People don’t usually sleep with their fucking eyes open…’
‘I felt for a pulse,’ Trevor offers, still reading. ‘There wasn’t one. Ergo…’ he turns a page for emphasis, ‘she was dead.’
‘So where were you when it happened?’ I ask.
Frank says, ‘We met some friends for lunch.’
‘Where?’
‘Silvio’s.’
‘You went to Silvio’s dressed like that?’
‘No, no. I’ve been on the deck catching some sun. I had time to kill, waiting for you to show up. You know I called Demetri over an hour ago?’
‘Who did you meet there?’
‘It was a business meeting,’ he nods gently with his eyes closed, the international sign for That’s All You Need to Know. ‘They’ll corroborate, if it gets to that.’
‘You left a prostitute here, in your home, alone?’
‘Top shelf girls don’t rip off your TV. She wasn’t a streetwalker, she was expensive and I was good business for her. Besides, I hadn’t paid her yet. I knew she’d be here when we got back.’
‘Where did you book her from?’
‘Executive Pleasure. I’ve got their card around somewhere.’
‘Is this her purse?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have you gone through it?’
‘Why would I?’ Frank’s forehead and belly glimmer at me. He looks to his companions for back-up. ‘Why the fuck does any of this matter?’
I open the purse. There’s not much inside. A fifty-dollar note. Condoms. A driver’s licence in the name of Angela Curzon.
‘Her real name’s Angela,’ I say.
‘That’s useful.’
‘You can call the police now.’
Frank sighs and moves to the phone, his face showing the world what a burden Angela’s death has become. Picking up the receiver, he says, ‘I was supposed to get my hair cut today.’ He raises a hand above his head and, half-laughing, shouts, ‘I cannot believe this fucking bitch!’
While he gives the details into the phone I sit on an antique chair adjacent to Nancy. There’s a summery cocktail on a coaster beside her and I look around for the bar but I don’t see one. I glimpse a stringy bathing suit underneath the fur coat.
I say, ‘You been sunbathing too, huh?’
She turns to face me like I can’t possibly be talking to her. She says, ‘No,’ and turns away again. In profile she resembles the mermaid outside. Languid. Over it.
Frank hangs up and shrugs at nobody. ‘They’re on their way.’ He steps past Trevor and into an easy chair, sipping a glass of whisky I hadn’t noticed until now. Now that I’ve noticed it I can smell it, from all the way across the living room. Through the french doors the ocean has changed colour and the kayakers are gone. As we sit in the bright silence my hopes of being offered a drink die a thirsty death; I figure Demetri would hear about it if I asked for one so soon after getting here. I’m taking in the crass details of the room—the wallclock in the shape of a woman’s breast, the stool by the front door with a bull’s head printed on its seat—when Trevor drops his magazine theatrically to the floor.
‘Is this really going to take the rest of the day?’
I say, ‘It might. They have to search the house. Take statements. They won’t be in a hurry.’
He turns up his nose and looks away, and in this moment I see Trevor flinch, like a small electric charge sparking in his brain. He asks me now, suddenly less bored, ‘Will they search the whole house?’
‘Probably a lot of it. Photograph it.’
‘Will they search us? Our personal things?’
Frank laughs, but there’s no humour in it. ‘We’ve got a corpse in here, Trevor. They’ll do whatever the fuck they want. What do you think John is here for?’
Trevor’s eyes are growing fearful. Frank hasn’t noticed yet.
‘Will they go through my things? My briefcase?’
I say, ‘Definitely.’
Frank’s still laughing. ‘Trevor, there better not be a kilo of coke in there.’
‘No, Frank, it’s just…’
He doesn’t finish, tries to imply the thing without saying it. Frank leans into Trevor and makes a face.
‘What?’
Trevor mutters, ‘…in the briefcase.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Trevor says, ‘What Alex gave us at lunch…’
Frank stuffs even more derision into his face.
‘So what? It’s a contract.’
‘It proves that we’re promoting his tax scheme.’
‘Right…’
‘And if that scheme is deemed abusive…’
Trevor’s still not saying it. Frank’s still not getting it.
‘What?’
Trevor’s mouth quivers. ‘The civil penalties alone could send you bankrupt…’
Frank’s eyes close. His head lolls back and a groan that starts in his belly comes out as: ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.’
Trevor says, ‘That’s right.’
‘We have to get rid of it.’
‘We can’t.’
‘We have to burn it before they get here.’
‘We can’t burn it. We need it.’
‘We can get another copy from Alex.’
‘With a dead girl on your couch? After he’s been questioned and asked to corroborate that we met him for lunch? He used to be the mayor, for Christ’s sake. He’s not going to want anything to do with this. If we destroyed the contract he could cancel the whole deal.’
Both of them are panicked, but I don’t know what they’re talking about so I can’t tell if they’re overreacting. This Alex person is presumably Alex Mills, who I knew indirectly when he was running the City of Port Phillip, who I believe was pimping out members of his staff at the time to campaign contributors. I’ve heard rumours about his shady GST schemes, but everything I know about tax offences wouldn’t rouse a chihuahua from its beauty sleep, so all I can do is sit back and watch the show.
Frank gets to his feet and paces across the Persian rug, turns back the other way. He continues like this for a while, distressed, wearing nothing but orange bathers.
‘We have to hide it. Somewhere in the house where they won’t find it.’
Trevor’s the calm one now, watching Frank. ‘Do we really? I mean, it’s got nothing to do with this.’ His hands go out to indicate Angela. ‘It’s a piece of paper. They’d only seize it if the search was conducted by the ATO.’
‘Who knows what they’ll walk in here with? They can seize my underwear if they want to. For God’s sake, Trevor. How could you leave this until now? That contract’s enough to sink me. It’s the whole bloody show, Trevor!’
He strikes out at the telephone, the closest thing to hand. It arcs across the room but doesn’t break, just rolls along the rug past Nancy’s feet.
She’s staring out the window, doesn’t appear to be listening. She’s either stoned or so jaded that she actually finds this boring.
In the silence Frank breathes deeply with his hands on his flabby hips. Trevor stares at the floor.
‘I’m a successful man,’ Frank says, softly. ‘And I got that way by being a paranoid bastard. We know the Tax Commissioner’s got it in for me. If she, or anyone in her office, or anyone who wants to crawl up the arse of anyone in her office, were to find out that a search of Frank Tenant’s home is about to take place…’
Trevor picks up the briefcase from behind the couch, nodding. From inside he takes out a thin red folder and cradles it in his lap. The way the sun hits it through the french doors, it’s the brightest thing in the room.
‘I could just leave with it…’ Trevor says. But even as he speaks, an engine none of us had noticed shuts off and now we notice it. Nancy, glancing out the window, gurgles, ‘They’re here.’
Frank takes several steps towards me. ‘Okay, John. This is where you come in. Where can we put it that they won’t find it?’
‘I can’t advise you on how to dupe the police force.’
‘Come on, it’s a contract, not a blood-smeared knife. Do what you’re paid for.’
‘That’s not what I’m paid for. And as Demetri’s representative, I can only advise you to cooperate with law enforcement to the best of your ability.’ I offer him the words like a chocolate I picked up off the floor.
Frank curses under his breath, turns to Trevor.
‘The private investigator has to say that, I suppose.’ He takes the red folder from Trevor. As he does, there’s a rapping on the front door.
‘Okay, Mister Pussy,’ Frank points at me. ‘You are here to manage the police, so go manage. I’ll take care of this.’
With the folder in his greasy, sunburnt hands, Franks slips out of the living room and into the hallway.
I take Frank’s house keys from the mantel and open the front door.
First in are the paramedics, not hurrying like they never do. They lean over the girl and start slapping her face and calling out for her to wake up. Nobody’s told them she’s been dead for three hours.
A plainclothesman and two uniforms are crossing the lawn, eyeballing me as they approach, and behind them there’s a patrol car. All four doors are opening. I step onto the patio tiles and lock the front door behind me, hold up a palm to the detective.
‘Can you show me some ID, please?’
He’s a fatherly type with a standalone moustache and serious eyes set deep in his head, dark enough to be almost indiscernible from his black monobrow. It’s an Easter Island face, moulded by the weather of a thousand years.
He flips out his wallet: Detective Steven Carney.
He says, ‘You Tenant’s lawyer?’
‘What’s a homicide detective doing here when no one’s been pronounced dead yet?’
The uniforms, six of them now, all glare at me—pleased, probably, to have found someone to hate so early in the game. I don’t mind if they think I’m a lawyer.
Carney says, ‘Can we get past, please?’
He steps towards the door. As delicately as I can, I get in the way.
‘I’m John Dorn. I represent Demetri Sfakiakopoulos, Mister Tenant’s solicitor. Mister Tenant is concerned for his privacy and for his personal well-being should the police conduct a search of his home. He’ll agree to a search only if the officers, all of them, submit themselves to a pat down, by me, before they enter.’
They look at each other with a kind of wonder. Though it didn’t seem possible, Carney’s monobrow plunges deeper into his eye sockets.
‘Sorry, son, that’s not how it works. We’ve got reasonable grounds to kick down that door if we need to. Now get out of the road—’
Carney reaches for the handle but I grab it first, hide it with my torso, both hands clasping it behind my back.
‘You don’t have reasonable grounds. This is a private residence, and Mister Tenant wasn’t here when Angela Curzon died. There’s no emergency that requires you to gain entry, and there’s no reason for you to think that Frank is destroying evidence. Now, he wants to help you do your job, but if you came to play pin-the-crime-on-the-donkey, then you can trundle off back to St Kilda Road and get yourselves a warrant.’
‘For goodness sake—’
‘I know it’s unorthodox,’ I say, lowering my voice, inches from Carney’s face. ‘But I’m not asking much, given what you fellows have been up to lately.’
This is where it’s useful that they think I’m a lawyer, since it was lawyers who pulled back the curtain on the Grupp
o scandal. It might even make them think I have a legal leg to stand on. But my gambit really depends on Carney, on his ego. Half the cops I’ve ever met would already have kicked down the door. Just because they can.
Carney cocks his head, looks at me sideways, his eyes small glints of light in those black recesses. The other cops shift from foot to foot, impatient. Then Carney screws up his face and laughs, and the uniforms join in like a studio audience.
He says, through giggles, ‘I hope getting touched up by a lawyer is what I always dreamed about.’
‘I’ll be gentle,’ I say.
He smirks while I frisk him, then gives me a mocking nod when I unlock the door to the house.
I pat down the uniforms. They’re not used to being on this side of a body search but they’ve got nothing to hide. Demetri was right. They’re not interested in setting up Frank. A couple of them glare at me and give me their cop face, but no one has to make a quick trip back to the patrol car.
One of them is a lanky telephone pole with Jason Regander, Constable pinned to his breast and a small gold band on his wedding finger. He’s younger than the others by two or three years, quiet, but he holds my eyes as I search him, makes a point of it, then steps past me into the house. He’s the last of them. I follow him inside.
Frank’s wearing a shirt now, getting questioned by Carney. Someone is taking photos of Angela, who hasn’t been moved since the paramedics gave up their attempts. She’s face up, washed out like maybe she drowned in really cold water. There are transparent plastic bags taped around her wrists, trapping in what evidence there might be on her skin, under her nails. The photographer moves around the couch—shoots a picture, takes a step to his left, shoots a picture. A boxer circling a heavy bag.
I hear Frank say, ‘The needle on the floor is what cost her her life, Detective.’
In separate corners of the living room are Trevor and Nancy, at the mercy of two officers and their notebooks. Nancy has removed her sunglasses and I’m struck now by her appearance: a sandy toughness that glows with vitamin D and freckles. Eyes that know everything skip across the room to meet mine. So bored. Challenging me to show her something new.
