by Iain Ryan
“What would you do, Laura?”
She felt a shudder of Taradale. The end of the earth tunnel. “I don’t know,” she said.
“That’s right,” said Dev. He stood up and went to the kitchen. He switched the jug on and looked out through the windows above the sink. “That’s the thing you get to understand over here. None of us know what to do. This is why we have Jim. Jim, and Old Bill, when he was alive. They always seemed to know what to do. Or, at least…something in Jim knows how to handle things like this.”
39
Thursday, January 6, 2005
She dozed the rest of the day. Dev was in and out. He made calls, always careful to step out onto the balcony, out of earshot. In between, he worked on his computer and forced water and tea into her. He wouldn’t let her leave. “You need to keep your head together,” he said. She felt bone-tired, sore, and clinically fucked. “Go lay down,” he said. It seemed like good advice.
It was dark when Harris returned.
He came in, glanced at her, and turned to Dev. “I’m going to take a shower. Then I’ve got to go.”
Romano checked her phone.
Ten-thirty PM.
She had a missed call from the Brisbane journalist, Maslow. On the sofa, where Dev couldn’t mistake it for something else, Romano dialled his number.
“My source in the church got back,” said Maslow. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“Hit me.”
“Frith’s been donating money to the Brisbane branch for over a decade. The church isn’t paying for the Mission. They’re making money off it.”
"That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does when you hear the rest.”
Romano listened. When Maslow was done, she put the phone down.
“Who was that?” said Dev.
Harris came back out. He’d changed into what looked like black army fatigues.
They both watched her.
“Frith was excommunicated in ’87,” she said. “He hasn’t been a priest in twenty years. He’s spent the last decade donating money back to the church in an attempt to get back in. They weren’t interested, but they took his cash anyway. Now, that’s a story that any right-minded person could sell.”
“You better show her,” said Harris. He looked wound up. His stare had a withering blankness to it that changed him completely. Romano didn’t like it.
Dev went to the table and started sorting papers.
Harris stared into space.
Harris said, “Frith and his wife tried to leave the island this morning. They were turned back at the tunnel. Chandler and Denny picked them up trying to hire a boat a couple of blocks away. They’re down at the station house now. After I got the call, I drove to the Mission, and the place was deserted. They destroyed most of the evidence, by the looks. Half the chapel is burnt to the ground.”
Dev kept working but picked up the story. “The owners of the Gold Point go all the way to the top over here. They don’t know anything about any of this stuff with Bruno. Jim reached out them, and they mined Bruno’s computers yesterday. It turned up some pretty nasty stuff. He hasn’t been super careful these last few years. The manager of the hotel, I guess he thought he was safe.”
Dev gathered together a set of printed photographs. He walked across and handed them to Romano. “Prizes,” he said. “See these numbers. They’re lodged in the system right alongside all the other high dollar items, the sports cars, jet skis, diamond jewellery.”
“There’s more,” said Harris. “There’s footage.”
“I don’t need to see it,” said Romano.
Her head pounded. She could feel her stomach rising.
She looked.
She stopped looking.
“What now?” she said.
“Weren’t you going to call someone?” Dev asked.
Romano threw the photos onto the coffee table.
“So how do you want to handle it?” she said.
Harris checked his watch. “Meet me at the barge at two.” He turned to Dev. “Give her the address.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“I’ll show you how to fix something like this,” he said. "Then you can call whoever you like.”
40
Friday, January 7, 2005
Jeff Bruno had a house nestled in the hills behind the Gold Point. It came with the job. Harris had been there before, when it belonged to Bruno’s predecessor. He came in on foot, finding the house lights blazing. A man sat inside, by one of the front windows. Harris backed up into some cover and took out his phone.
Dev: “How is it?”
“Looks like he’s in there. But he’s got a guard sitting inside.”
“Anyone we know?”
“New guy.”
“How do you feel about it?” said Dev.
“It’s fine. It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be. Bruno might not even know. But I don’t want to pop some kid just for sitting there. You think you can track him down in Payroll?”
“Hold tight.”
Harris walked back down into the gardens and watched the house. Five minutes later, the guard stood up and took a call. He looked out the window, searching around. He nodded, closed the phone, and looked at it in his hand. A full minute passed before the guard stepped around to the door. He walked out, leaving it open behind him.
Harris went in expecting trouble. The sound of a television floated down the stairs. Harris went up. A door hung open at the end of a hallway, light spraying out, the television louder. Harris eased himself along, moved slowly into the room, rifle trained. Jeff sat on his bed in front of the TV, a half-packed suitcase on the bed behind him.
“Jeff,” said Harris.
Bruno turned away from the screen and looked at him. He had a drink in his hand. He took a sip and turned back to the screen.
Harris lowered the gun.
“Come on,” he said.
The man shrugged.
41
Romano stood at the end of the jetty and watched the old barge creep in alongside her. It was a rusted hulk, just a factory floor on the water. The thing was almost empty; a large car-sized piece of machinery sat on the deck, covered by a dirty canvas sheet. After the boat ground ashore, it took a few minutes for the engine to power down. As it idled, Romano walked back along the jetty and waited.
After a time, a man stepped out of the barge’s overhead cabin. He climbed down and came out to where Romano stood.
“Did Jim send you?”
She nodded. A short, stocky man, he looked vaguely familiar.
“Hey, I know you. You were at the meeting. Tony”—he put his hand out—“Jim sent you down here right?”
“Yeah, Jim sent me. We going somewhere tonight?”
“I just drive the thing,” he said, and squinted in the darkness. He lit a smoke.
Lights appeared behind them from across the car park. A convoy of cars approached. A police wagon came first, Chandler behind the wheel. He drove onto the barge followed by two plain white vans, one—Romano noticed—had Chan Maintenance stencilled on the side. Chandler parked and walked back onto the shore. He seemed not to see Romano there as he passed.
“Chandler?” she said.
He kept walking into the dark. Romano jogged over to him.
“Chandler?”
“Don’t do it,” he said. “You don’t want to get on that thing.”
He didn’t stop walking.
“Why? What’s going on? No one’s telling me anything.”
He stopped, turned. “I told you not to get involved with these people. I told you right from the start, I told you not to fucking…Forget it. Forget it.”
He started off.
“Chandler, wait,” she said, but he didn’t stop.
Another set of cars arrived, swerving around Chandler as he strode across the bitumen. There was a clapped-out sedan driven by a broad man with long hair —unmistakably a Doomrider—and beside him sat Vic, the grisly old
man from Angel City. They had another man in the back. The man in back was gagged. Behind them was a dark SUV with tinted windows, and then a final van driven by Dev, with Harris riding shotgun.
They stopped by her.
“Get on the barge,” said Harris.
Over in the distance she spotted Chandler, still walking fast.
The barge engine roared back to life. Tony was back in his cabin.
She watched the final van drive on.
The mouth of the barge loomed in the night.
She walked towards it.
They headed north, out into the open ocean. It was warm, but all the drivers stayed in their vehicles. Romano lit a cigarette and stood at the rear of the deck, watching the churning sea trail out behind them. The lights of Tunnel blinked in the distance.
When the island was long gone, the barge came to a slow rest in the sea. It was a calm night. On the gangway above, she heard Tony step out. He came down the narrow stairs onto the deck and walked around to a light mounted to the barge’s iron side.
He flicked the light on and off four times and waited.
The sound of motors drifted in.
Then the boats themselves arrived.
There were three:
O’Shea was on the first. With Tony’s help, he scrambled off a small fishing boat onto the deck only a few feet from where Romano stood. He didn’t acknowledge her. He didn’t seem to notice her. The second boat contained two Asian men Romano didn’t recognise. The third brought a young white guy, dressed like a computer programmer. He wore glasses, shorts, a grey marl hoodie.
From behind her a familiar voice said, “Okay, let’s get on with it.” It was Harris.
Everyone came out of their cars. There were a dozen of them, all men. They gathered down the end of the barge where the open water almost sat at floor level. O’Shea stepped out into the centre.
“We all know why we’re here,” he said. “The rules are clear and we all understand them. For a long time, we haven’t had ta have even a wee talk about any of this, but now…now we have new people coming all the time, don’t we?” He pointed at two men off to one side, then to Romano. “And, like any other big organisation, we can miss things. This, what we’re going to clean up ta’night, is a whole other thing. This should never have bloody happened. Naw minors. Naw violence against anyone’s family. Naw bombing. Naw arson. And naw fooking knocking anyone in management without the green light from Zane. That’s it, that’s the bloody deal and we all agreed ta it. That’s all we have ta fooking do ta keep this place running. So let this be a wee reminder of what happens when you bite the hand that feeds ya. Okay, go and get the rest of ’em.”
Five men peeled off from the group.
“What’s happening?” Romano asked.
No one answered.
The men gathered seven people from the cars, eight prisoners. There was Pastor Frith, Pauline, and the woman Romano had tussled with at the Mission. They were dragged from the back of the police wagon, all handcuffed, each with a single strip of black electrical tape covering their mouths. Dev brought them forward, made them kneel on the iron deck. They stared at the ground, terrified. The Doomriders brought an older man Romano didn’t recognise. They threw him down beside the priest and his wife. Then came an Asian man, stripped to his underwear, a broad-shouldered Caucasian covered in faded tattoos and a neat-looking Italian still in his croupier uniform. They were all put in a line. Jeff Bruno appeared last. They put him down beside Frith and Pauline.
“Now,” said O’Shea. “Ya all did the right thing, giving us ya people. Zane appreciates it. There’s one fella missing. Who was it?”
“Yates,” said Harris.
“That’s right. Mister Yates has got a head start on us, but he’ll turn up. And I wouldn’t want to be him when we catch him. But ya lot, this is it for ya. We’ll make it quick.”
“What? What?” said Romano, slowly under her breath.
Harris suddenly had a gun in his hand.
Dev stepped in beside her. “You want to tread carefully now,” he said.
The kid in the hoodie took a small video camera from his pocket and turned it on.
Harris moved around behind the naked Asian man first. He dragged him over to the edge of the barge and, without a moment’s hesitation, lifted the man’s head up by the hair and shot him through the skull. The shot was loud and thick. It reverberated around the steel deck. Romano watched the casing bounce by her feet and roll away. Harris moved to the Italian croupier and did the same. More blood, just a dark spray against the ocean backdrop. Methodically, Harris moved down the line with all the grim and calm stillness of a man beheading chickens.
The tattooed man struggled. Harris clocked him, then blew his brains out.
The older man died without a word.
The woman from the Mission begged through her gag, to no avail. Harris slowly dragged her over to the edge, by all the other bodies, then he shot her.
When he came to Pauline, O’Shea stepped in.
“Hold on,” he said.
Romano steadied herself. She could hear herself breathing.
The Inspector went to Frith and tore the gag off. Frith instantly spewed food and bile across the deck. When he was done, he started muttering about Pauline. “She didn’t do a thing,” he said. “You know, she didn’t know a thing. She doesn’t know—”
“Jesus, Pastor. Now’s not a great time ta get on my bad side,” said O’Shea. “Ya listen to me, you sick fook. Ya know where Yates is? He contact you?”
O’Shea slapped him.
Frith kept on begging. “Please. She doesn’t know a thing, she—”
“Shut ya mouth.”
O’Shea moved over to Bruno and pulled his gag off. “Where’s Yates?”
Bruno didn’t say a word. He didn’t even lift his gaze. He knelt there, eyes squeezed shut.
Pauline gave a muffled scream, eyes frantically searching the crowd.
O’Shea stood back, looked at each of them in turn. “Last chance here? Okay then.”
Harris grabbed Pauline by the arm and dragged her over to the barge’s side. Blood had started to pool and his feet sloshed as he moved. The woman bucked and writhed in the cuffs. Romano felt herself starting to lock up. Harris didn’t look good, either. He was slow now.
“What? Wha…” said Romano, again.
Harris was hesitating, making it worse.
A moment passed. He stood there with the gun, almost as if taking in the ocean. Then, without explanation, Harris let Pauline go and stood back. He began to shake his head. He adjusted his sidearm.
“What?” said O’Shea.
“You fucking do it then,” said Harris. “Enough. Not her.”
O’Shea shook his head. “This is below my pay grade, matey.”
They stood there in the dark.
Romano could suddenly feel the gentle rocking of the barge in the sea. Her skin burned.
“For fuck’s sake.” It was the priest talking now. “Get on with it, one of you. I’ll see every single one of you in hell. You especially,” he said to O’Shea. “We’re all the same here, all alike. We’ll all burn together. Don’t bloody kid yourselves, you fucking pigs. We’re all going to die and we’re all going to hell, it doesn’t make a lick of fuck—”
Romano shot him.
The crowd flinched as the bullet passed through Frith’s torso and pinged off the barge’s iron walls.
It was a messy shot. It didn’t kill him.
Romano stepped over to the priest’s body and squatted down to look him in the face. The man was on his stomach now, eyes flickering, not quite believing it was happening.
“Help me,” he said, black ooze dripping from his mouth.
She let him choke on it.
Romano went to Pauline. She patted the woman’s head, smoothed her hair, and fired. When it was done, she found all of the men staring at her.
Her hands started to tremble.
Romano looked at the bodies.
Taradale.
She looked at the gun in her hand and said. “I don’t even remember taking this out.”
No one spoke.
The kid with the camera zoomed in. It whirred.
“Get that off me or I’ll do you next,” she said.
“Constable, maybe you should…” said O’Shea.
“What?”
“Constable!” screamed O’Shea.
Romano pointed the gun at him. She felt nothing.
“Laura?” Dev’s voice.
O’Shea shied away from the gun.
“Laura?”
“I don’t give a fuck about you, Inspector,” she said. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t just pop you now and throw you down with the others.”
“Constable, put it down!”
“What is this? What? Things need to change around here, starting right fucking now. From now on, you see me around, any of you, you see me around, you remember me right as I am now. Because I’m not going to sit at home and top myself like the last guy. I’m going to do my job. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do my fucking job and you’re all going to get on side with it or we’re going to have a big fucking problem over here.”
She swung the gun around the group in a slow arc.
They all watched.
She let it rest on Harris. He waited. He didn’t seem to care.
“All of you,” she said.
“Constable.” O’Shea again. “Well, we’ll—”
“No,” said Harris. “You all heard her. Anyone touches her over this, over this or anything else, it’s on them. And it’ll be coming from me. Take it back to your people.”
“What about him,” Romano asked, nodding at Bruno.
Harris looked around. "Tony? Go and get it started.”
Harris dragged Bruno up from the deck and walked him over to the machine hidden beneath the canvas sheet.
The crowd followed.
Romano hung back.
“We’ll talk more,” O’Shea said.
