Bright City Deep Shadows

by Graham Storrs

  He held up a hand. “Be a good boy and tell me in the morning, hey?”

  “No, you irritating old bastard. I just wanted to say you’re right. Running away isn’t the answer. This is more my fight than anybody’s. So, if you and the cops have got a plan, I want to be in on it. OK?” I held up both hands and backed out of the doorway. He eyed me speculatively. “That’s all I wanted to say. Now you can go back to drinking the blood of first-born babes, or plucking the legs off spiders, or whatever you do keep yourself amused when you’re not pointing guns at your house guests.” I closed the door on a slowly expanding grin.

  Chapter Twenty

  Right in the middle of Brisbane, there is a concrete lake with a sandy, artificial beach. Whenever the weather is warm – which is most of the time – the place is filled with families playing and relaxing. Mostly it’s mothers and their bubs. There’s a lot of laughing and screaming as you’d expect but, for all the noise and splashing, it’s a joyful, heartening place. The kind of place that makes you feel good about your fellow humans and happy to be part of the great river of life.

  Ronnie and I met Detective Sergeant Alexandra Bertolissio there at nine AM the next morning. We got takeaway coffees from one of the stalls there and sat together at a white-painted steel table. I’ve always had a stereotype of what a female cop is like; biggish, a bit mannish, trying a little too hard to be one of the boys, acting a bit too tough, hard-faced, and humourless. It’s an impression I must have got from watching TV cop shows because I don’t remember ever meeting a policewoman in real life. DS Bertolissio was the exact opposite of my preconceptions. What was even more amazing was that she showed a keen and well-informed interest in my philosophical studies. Predictably, my explanation of the Gettier problem and the relationship between justified belief and knowledge, drove Ronnie nuts.

  “All right,” he snapped, cutting across me as I was in full flow. “No-one cares how many coins are in whose pocket. Especially not me. So, can we get back to reality now?” Bertolissio’s smile of acquiescence was indulgent and amused. “Right. So. Before we got sidetracked into the realms of fantasy...” He glared at me, then turned back to the cop. “...you were telling us you’re willing to help us – on the QT – but no-one else at police HQ is going to lift a finger.”

  “That’s right. DI Reid is off the case. So am I. We’re all working on other matters now. Chelsea’s murder is officially closed and Simon Anning’s is with State Crime Command.”

  “Where it will fester and die,” Ronnie said.

  She began to give some bullshit defence of her friends in organised crime but cut herself short. “Yes, probably.”

  “But you don’t want to let it go,” said Ronnie.

  She looked at him for a long moment, choosing her words. “I think you understand what it’s like when a case starts to open up in interesting ways and then the grown-ups tell you to put all your toys away and get ready for dinner.”

  “Oh yeah, that used to get right up my fucking nose. But, if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t strike me as the rebellious kind. You’re what, thirty-five? A Detective Sergeant. You’re not exactly streaking up through the ranks but you’re doing OK. Probably a combination of doing your job better than every man around you, keeping your nose clean and tucking yourself tightly under DI Reid’s protective wing.”

  She pursed her lips. “Something like that.”

  “And the levels above Reid, and most of your peers and subordinates, would just love to take you down a peg or two. Nobody likes an uppity woman, hey?”

  “Or a tall poppy,” she said, taking it all in good part.

  “So why risk everything by going rogue over this case? Anning was a lowlife and Kurt Opperman has a whole department trying to bury him.”

  She shrugged. “Look, I’m not going to be copying police files for you or getting you weapons out of evidence. All I said I’d do was talk it through with you and help where I can.” Ronnie’s face sort of closed up. He physically pulled back a little. He did not like her answer. “All right,” she said, seeing it. “I’ve run into the Devil’s Playthings before and I don’t like them. You two seem to have a way of bumbling your way through to the answers we’ve been missing and I just have the feeling that, with a little bit of support, you might actually get somewhere.”

  “Big of you,” said Ronnie, scowling.

  “If you don’t want my help, I can—”

  “We do,” I said. “We definitely do.” I looked pointedly at Ronnie. “Don’t we?”

  Bertolissio didn’t wait for Ronnie’s answer. “All right, we’ve all had fun kicking the tyres of this little collaboration. I assume we’re going to buy, regardless of the state of the bodywork.”

  I hooked a thumb at Ronnie. “And the mileage.”

  “I need to go soon,” Bertolissio continued, all business. She addressed Ronnie. “You’re going to contact Debra Heinzer. You’re going to persuade her that she’s better off with us than with Opperman. Can you do that?” Ronnie gave her a shrug and she frowned.

  “He can be very charming,” I said.

  She looked doubtful but went on. “I’m going to spend a bit of time with a friend from State Crime Command and get up to speed with what the Devil’s Playthings are up to these days, who’s who in the zoo, that kind of thing. I’ll let you know if I find anything useful.” She looked sideways at Ronnie. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather I approached Heinzer? If she calls her lawyer, she’ll almost certainly get a restraining order against you.”

  “She’ll be right,” Ronnie said. “We’ll be extra nice. Besides, if you went and she called Reid, you’d be back in uniform doing crowd control at footy matches.”

  She left us to finish our coffees and enjoy the morning sunshine.

  “So, how do we get in to see Debra?” I asked. “The kid on reception’s going to throw a fit if we go anywhere near the place.”

  “We hijack her.”

  “Right.” I laughed. Ronnie didn’t. “All right,” I said, slowly.

  “Tonight, when she goes home.”

  “We’re just going to talk to her, yeah?”

  He furrowed his brows. “You have some pretty strange ideas about me. The first one you need to get rid of is that I’m an idiot. Of course we’ll just bloody talk to her.” Then he grinned. “We’re going to kidnap someone else entirely.”

  * * * *

  My unit was in a block of four, purpose-built apartments on a very quiet little street in Indooroopilly. I walked along the quaintly broken pavement, looking around anxiously. Ronnie had told me to look nervous but, honestly, I didn’t need any coaching. Like most of the other blocks of units on my street, mine had a group of four post boxes built into a low wall at the front. Like all the other post boxes, mine was stuffed to overflowing with junk mail. There were plastic-wrapped magazines and other rubbish no-one wanted or felt responsibility for, piled on top. I glanced up and down the street and unlocked my post box. By the time I’d heaved out an armload of envelopes and flyers, a car horn sounded from the road to my right. I stuffed everything back in, relocked the box and ran towards the sound.

  Ronnie was leaning on the door of a small van, grinning at me. In the driver and passenger seats were two men in grey overalls. They seemed to be sleeping. Ronnie had been dead right. Two of Opperman’s soldiers had been staking out my unit and my appearance at the post boxes had held their attention enough that he could sneak up on them and do whatever he’d just done.

  “They’re not…?”

  “Dead? Nah.” He seemed to be enjoying himself. “Come on. Give me a hand.”

  He went round the back of the van and climbed in. I opened the driver’s door and, leaning inside, helped him drag the unconscious men into the back of the van. He busied himself tying and gagging them for a while, then joined me in the front. I drove the van, as we had agreed, into my parking space under the unit.

  “Eenie, meenie, minie, mo,” he said, gazing at the two men. They were
both still out cold and I tried not to think about what he must have done to them. “That scar-faced bastard gave me the most trouble,” he said, pointing. “Let’s have the other one.” Scar-face was burly, with long, black hair. The other one was slighter, blonde and looked about my age.

  “You’re sure this is a good idea?” I asked as we manhandled the blonde out of the van.

  Moving him seemed to bring him round. His lolling head lifted and he groaned. Then he looked around wildly and began thrashing and trying to yell. Ronnie hit him in the stomach and snarled, “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll gut you,” into his ear. The man stopped struggling and seemed to refocus his energy into glaring at Ronnie with pure hatred in his eyes.

  “Here.” Ronnie handed me our prisoner and I held him from behind. I looked at Ronnie desperately over the man’s shoulder. He wasn’t a big bruiser, like Scarface, but he was plenty big enough to scare the crap out of me. “Here,” he said again, joining me behind the man. He poked out a thumb and pressed it into Blondie’s ribs. The bikie went stiff and still. “Take this knife. Just there, between the third and fourth ribs. If he gives you any trouble, push hard. It’ll be quick. We can always take the other one.” I copied what he showed me, pressing the end of my thumb into Blondie’s back. To my relief, he stayed still and didn’t call my bluff.

  Seeing I had him, Ronnie went back into the van. He put on a pair of those thin plastic gloves like surgeon’s wear. I wondered where he got them but it didn’t surprise me too much that he had them in his pocket. Inside the van, he laid Scarface on his belly and tied the man’s ankles to a slip-knot around his neck. Even I could see that, if the bloke was stupid enough to struggle, he would strangle himself. Then Ronnie searched the van and both prisoners. He was quick, efficient and thorough. He came away with a load of stuff that included a bunch of phones, a couple of envelopes, a bag of crisps, two handguns and a shotgun.

  “OK, let’s get him upstairs.” He put a gun in my hand and pushed the muzzle into Blondie’s back. “Use the gun,” he said. “Keep the muzzle against his back to keep the noise down if you have to use it.”

  Incredibly, Blondie didn’t struggle or shout all the way up to my unit. I didn’t think there’d be anyone around in the middle of the day but, if anyone had opened their door, we’d have been in serious trouble. I unlocked the door and we took our prisoner inside. Ronnie dumped the guns and the other bits and pieces on the kitchen worktop, dragged a chair out from the kitchen area and tied Blondie to it.

  As soon as Ronnie took off the man’s gag, he began yelling for help. The noise set my heart thumping in my chest but it was cut off almost immediately by a sickening wet thud as Ronnie smashed his fist into Blondie’s face. He stood over the seated man, fists balled.

  “Go on,” he said, softly. “Shout again.”

  Blondie looked like he wanted to tear Ronnie apart with his teeth, but he kept silent, perhaps understanding, as I was finally beginning to, that he was dealing with a bloke who would not hesitate to hurt him very badly.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” I said. Even to myself, I sounded like a scared little wuss.

  “Shut the fuck up or get out,” Ronnie snapped, not looking at me. “Go through that junk on the worktop and see if there’s anything useful. Use these.”

  He pulled out another pair of surgical gloves and handed them to me. I tried not to look at Blondie – who was now bleeding from a cut on his lip – and hurried away, glad to be able to turn my back on whatever was coming. I could hear Ronnie asking questions – “What’s your name? Who sent you? Why?” – that kind of thing. He didn’t seem to like the answers much because he started doing things that made Blondie cry out in pain. I tried to tune it out and focus on the miscellany in front of me.

  The guns, I didn’t touch. The phones were all locked. The letters were both addressed to Matthew Pruitt at an address in Chermside. One was a demand for unpaid road tolls, the other was a demand for unpaid child support. I took a photo of the name and address and put them aside. There were two, small ziplock bags. One contained a half-dozen smaller paper bags. The other contained about twenty little white pills.

  “What’ve you got?” Ronnie said, walking over. I glanced past him at the man he’d been torturing. His face was starting to look bruised and puffy. He looked back at me with sullen, hate-filled eyes. I showed Ronnie the letters and the two bags of drugs.

  “OK,” he said. “We’re finished here. Grab what you want from your stuff. Get your passport and anything else important – insurance docco, keepsakes, anything valuable. You won’t be coming back. Don’t argue. Just do it.”

  I did what he said. I grabbed a holdall and stuffed it with everything I could think of that I might miss if I never saw it again. I was shaken and angry. I was mad at Ronnie for the savagery of what I’d seen him do. I was more mad at myself for becoming his accomplice in all this. I was trembling as I packed, sickening tremors in all my muscles. I’d never seen a man tied up and beaten, never thought I ever would. I’d seen it on the telly, of course – who hasn’t? – but the reality of seeing it happen right in front of you was so very much worse.

  By the time I was done, Ronnie had bagged up the stuff from the worktop and had Blondie on his feet with a gun in the small of his back. Without a word, we went back down to the van. Ronnie pushed Blondie into the back and tied his feet to his neck, just like the other bloke. We got in and he drove us out onto the street and down to where his car was parked. He gave me the keys and told me to take his car and follow him. I obeyed, mechanically, just glad to be out of the van and away from Ronnie.

  He drove out of the city and into the bush. On a dirt road in a National Park to the north, he pulled off the road and I pulled up behind him. My stomach was in a knot again. There was only one reason he’d bring those men out here: he was going to kill them. I could see the logic of it. They knew who we were. If we let them go, they’d go straight back to Opperman and tell him what had happened. After what we’d done, it would be all out war. They’d come for us and we’d die. The only way to avoid it was to make sure neither of these men could talk to the cops.

  Even though it made sense, I couldn’t let it happen. I had sleepwalked into kidnap and torture, but I wouldn’t let myself be a party to murder. Yet I had no idea how I was going to stop it. Old as he was, I was no match for Ronnie in a fight. All I had on my side was my brain. I was trained in philosophy. I had studied rhetoric. If I couldn’t talk him out of committing this most terrible of crimes, what use had all that been? I began marshalling my arguments, trying to find appeals to his honour, to natural justice, to authorities he might respect, as I climbed out of the car. He was already opening the back.

  “The true guide to life is to do what is right,” I said. He turned to look at me. The two men in the back of the van turned to look at me.

  “The fuck are you talking about?” he asked.

  “That was – that was Winston Churchill,” I stammered, aware that I was already making a mess of it.

  “What, that murderous old bastard?” he said. He had the bag that had all the contents of the van and was looking inside it. “You know he ordered the police to shoot at striking miners in Cornwall once?”

  “What? I – I thought you might be a fan.”

  “Yeah, right!” He pulled out the two bags of drugs. I noticed he was still wearing his plastic gloves. “One for you,” he said, stuffing the bag of pills in Blondie’s trouser pocket. “And one for you,” slipping the bag of baggies into Scarface’s shirt pocket.

  “You can’t kill them,” I said. Three pairs of eyes turned to me in surprise. “It’s not right.”

  “OK,” said Ronnie, pleasantly. The two in the van seemed to sag with relief.

  “I – What?”

  “OK, I won’t kill them.” He pulled one of the burner phones out of his pocket and dialled triple-zero. I must have looked as nonplussed as I felt. “Oh, hello,” he said into the phone. “I have a message for Dete
ctive Inspector Trevor Reid. I am a concerned citizen and I have captured two evil druggies and tied them up in their van. They are members of the Devil’s Playthings Motorcycle Club and they are implicated in the murder of Simon Anning and Chelsea Campbell. There are weapons and drugs in their van too.” He gave the precise location and hung up.

  I was still gaping at him in astonishment.

  “You really thought I was going to kill them?”

  “I – Maybe.”

  He shook his head, sadly and went to talk to his prisoners. “OK, guys, listen up. The police will be along to arrest you soon.” As he spoke, he took the ammunition out of the two handguns. “Gee, I hope these guns haven’t been used in any crimes or anything because I’m sure the cops are going to be all over them. Same with the van, of course. Not stolen, I hope. You’ll be doing a bit of time, anyway, for the drugs, I reckon, so the rest is just icing on the cake, hey?” He pushed a gun into each man’s trouser belt. “There, now, just one last thing. You probably won’t get a chance to talk to Kurt Opperman directly, but you’ll be seeing one of his pet lawyers pretty soon, so you can pass on a message for me. Tell the miserable coward I’m coming for him. Tell him I know where he goes, I know where he lives, I know who his friends are, his relatives and his loved ones. Tell him I know the scams he’s running and the people involved. Tell him he fucked with the wrong bloke when he had Chelsea Campbell killed. Tell him he’s going to regret it.”

  He stepped back and slammed the van doors shut. “Come on. The cops’ll be here soon. Wouldn’t do if we were still standing around chatting.” He got into the driver’s side of his Volvo and I, snapping out of my amazement, got into the passenger side. He grumpily adjusted the driver’s seat position and the mirrors, muttering, “Lanky bastard.” and drove off in a cloud of lose dirt.

  “What the hell was that?” I demanded when we were on the road and well on our way. “The cops are going to crucify us for this. Not to mention the bloody bikies.”