Bright City Deep Shadows

by Graham Storrs

  “That’s not what she told me. She’s lying.” Of course she was lying. For some reason, she didn’t want to say she’d met Opperman. “Look, she’s scared. They’ve threatened her. You know Opperman will think she had something to do with it, right? You know he’ll think she set them up? He needs her now, but...”

  “Of course. She’ll get twenty-four hour protection.”

  “And her parents?”

  “Yes. She should have come straight to us.”

  “Should she?”

  Another silence. “I’m still waiting for your promise.”

  “All right, but first tell me how you plan to get Ronnie out.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “I know you just told me you don’t have any evidence so you can’t do anything.”

  “We’re working on that.”

  “Not impressed.”

  “It’s not my job to impress you, Luke, only to keep you safe. Do you promise not to go to the clubhouse, or do I have to send a couple of uniforms out to bring you in?”

  “Do what you like,” I snapped and hung up. I’m not exactly good with confrontations. My hands were actually trembling as I fiddled with the phone to pull the SIM card out.

  * * * *

  “Bit of a blue?” Dicko asked as I collected him from the café.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I could see you over there talking on your phone. Looked like you was spewing with someone.”

  “It was the cops. We need to get going.”

  He got up and we made our way back to the car.

  “Nothing illegal, you said.”

  “I’m not doing anything illegal,” I said, trying to sound convincing. “They want to put me in protective custody.”

  He pursed his lips. “Might not be a bad idea. Better than going up against all them bikies, hey?”

  “I’ve told you. I’m not going up against anyone.”

  “So what’s in all them bags?” We reached the car and I slung my purchases in the back. There was a loud, metallic clunk. “Fuck, that’s not a shooter, is it?”

  “No! It’s bolt cutters. In case I need to get through a fence.”

  “Yeah? Well that, right there, sounds bloody dodgy to me.”

  “Like I said, you can go and be miles away while I’m… bending the rules a bit. You’ll be OK if I get caught.”

  He sat behind the wheel, frowning as he pondered this. I checked my watch. It was late afternoon, just a couple of hours before nightfall. I’d been rushing to get to Ronnie but now it struck me that, if there was any chance of finding him, it would be better at night.

  “Fancy a trip to the beach?” I asked. Dicko looked at me as if I’d gone crazy. “Come on, drive us to Sandgate. I fancy a walk on the foreshore.” With a shrug, he started the engine and we threaded our way out of the car park, leaving just as two police cars came hurrying in by a different entrance. They had their lights flashing and I congratulated myself on disabling my phone. However, it wouldn’t be long before Bertolissio arrived and she’d take a look at the mall security cameras to find out what car I was driving. She’d see Dicko, she’d get the car’s rego, and she’d have every cop in Brisbane looking out for us. It was frustrating that I didn’t know the law. Could she just put me in prison because she thought I was in danger? It seemed improbable. I desperately wanted to reassemble my phone so I could call Terry Marchant, the lawyer, and get his expert opinion, but I dare not. I borrowed Dicko’s phone and had to look up the number because it was in my phone’s memory and not my own.

  To my surprise, Marchant was a bit vague on the matter. Having gone round the houses a couple of time, he said, “The bottom line is, if they want to put you in custody for a while, there are plenty of ways they can do it. They don’t even have to be very creative. Conspiring to commit an offence is always handy. If you’ve spoken to a criminal lately… Have you, by the way?”

  I was about to give an emphatic no but then I remembered the call from Kurt Opperman. I told Marchant about it and he chuckled.

  “What an exciting life you and Ronnie lead. Anyway, that’s enough for them to trump up some kind of conspiracy charge. It won’t stick, of course, but they could deny you bail and hold you for several days, if they’re being bloody minded. On the other hand, if they can pin a terrorism charge on you, the sky’s the limit.”

  I didn’t think Bertolissio would go that far. She just wanted to help me, not destroy me “What if they don’t charge me?”

  “Eight hours, max. Look, I’m in the middle of something. Give me a bell if they nab you.”

  Eight hours was too much. I had to get Ronnie free that very night. If I didn’t, some crazy police raid by DS Grogan and his people would put Ronnie right out of reach and might even get him killed. My stomach clenched at the thought that I might soon be creeping through some criminal-infested death-trap, looking for Ronnie in the dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  When we reached Sandgate, I told Dicko to avoid the public car parks and find a spot off the main streets. I didn’t want a prowling cop car to spot us. I felt the need to be alone but Dicko didn’t take the hints I dropped and followed me to the main parade. We didn’t talk, which was something, and, pretty soon we had the ocean roaring in our ears to deter conversation. A wind blew in from the east, whipping up low waves. The ocean was grey and immense and shrouded in haze. I spotted a fish and chip shop and bought us a couple of fish dinners. I led us down to the beach where we ate from the cardboard trays as we walked along.

  “Bloody ace, hey?” Dicko announced, holding up a piece of battered fish.

  “Yeah, always tastes better at the beach.”

  “Bloody oath!” he agreed, warmly.

  We walked on in silence.

  “So, I was thinking,” he said around a mouthful of chips. “If you go to that bikie place tonight and you don’t come out again...”

  “How am I going to pay you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t got that much cash and there’s no way to get it at this time of day. You’ll just have to hope I make it.”

  He stared at the sand as we trudged along. “You could, like, pay me up to the time you go in and then I wouldn’t be so out of pocket if… you know.”

  “And I could trust you to still be there waiting when I got out? You wouldn’t just bugger off?”

  “Nah, mate. Scouts honour.”

  Oh why not? I thought. He was probably right to worry about me disappearing. In fact, I’d just pay him the full amount and have done with it. “You got a PayPal account?”

  “Sure.”

  I reached for my phone and remembered. “Bugger! I can’t pay you now ’cause I can’t turn my phone on without the cops finding us.”

  He held out his phone. “Do it on mine.”

  “I can’t, I don’t know my password.”

  “What? Come on!”

  “Seriously. I use a password manager. It runs on my phone. All I know is the master password – which is useless on its own. Mate, you’re just going to have to trust me to come back.”

  “Fuck!”

  His disappointment was clear evidence that he did not expect me to survive the night. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  To his credit, he looked a little guilty – but only a little.

  I spotted a pub up on the road. “Fancy a coldie? My shout.”

  He nodded, dismally, as if to let me know that a beer wasn’t much compensation for all the money he expected to lose. When we were settled in a quiet corner of the pub with condensation beading on our glasses, he said, “Tell me again what all this is about.”

  I hadn’t really told him much at all but his tone of voice said he needed some reassurance that his wasted day and prospective loss was all in a good cause. So I told him the whole story, from the beginning. When I’d finished, he frowned at his beer.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. I’d expected him to now un
derstand everything and to be completely on-side. It was irritating that he looked as if I’d been speaking in a foreign language.

  “You went after your girlfriend’s killer, right. I get that. And you found him. So that’s case closed, hey? So what the fuck are you doing messing about with these bikie fuckers? What’s that all about?”

  I tried explaining again but he wasn’t having it.

  “Nah, mate. I reckon you’ve just got a death wish. And as for this mate of yours you want to rescue, sounds to me like he’s got kangaroos loose in the top paddock.” He tapped his temple for emphasis.

  I gave up. “Time to go.” He looked meaningfully at his half-finished beer. “You’ll drive better without it.” He was clearly annoyed but so was I. I stood up. Angrily, he downed the rest of his drink in one swallow and followed me out to the street. It was almost dark. I should have waited a little longer but maybe waiting was a bad idea. God knows what they were doing to Ronnie while I sat around chatting to Dicko.

  As we walked up the road, a police car drove past. I watched it carry on up the road until it came to the pub. It turned into the car park.

  “Fuck!”

  “What?”

  “They’re tracking us. Shit! It’s your phone.”

  “What?”

  “Take the chip out.”

  “What?”

  We had to get off the main road. I broke into a trot, urging Dicko along with me until I found a turning and took it.

  “Give me your phone,” I said, walking fast, holding out my hand.

  “What? No.”

  “I won’t damage it. The cops know who you are. They got your rego from the surveillance cameras in the mall car park. So now they’ve got your phone number and they’re using it to track us. You need to take the chip out so they can’t.” I should have thought of it. It was a stupid mistake. I watched comprehension slowly dawn on his pimply face. He pulled out his phone. It was an old model iPhone. The SIM card was in a little drawer and we needed to insert a pin into a tiny hole to make the drawer open. I pulled him off the street behind a bush. We had to sort this out before we went any farther.

  Of course, he didn’t have a pin and neither did I. I scanned the area for something, anything we could use. But there was nothing.

  “You need to get rid of your phone. Or smash it.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I’m serious. Getting it onto a moving vehicle would be best.” But the chances were slim. There was no traffic on the side-street and I didn’t want to go back to the main road. “Or we could hide it somewhere.” But they’d know where it was and find it easily. “Or smash it. That’s the safest option.”

  He put his phone behind his back as if I might try to snatch it.

  “No, wait.” I had spotted the letter box for the house whose drive we were hiding in. It was one of those little metal boxes on a pole, with a slot at the front and a flap at the back. I called Dicko to me. “Hold your phone in there and see if it’s got a signal.”

  “What?”

  “For God’s sake, just do it. The cops will be cruising back this way in a minute.”

  Looking dubious, he did as I asked.

  “Does it have a signal?”

  “What?”

  I clenched my jaw to stop myself screaming at him. “Have a look at the screen and tell me if it has a signal.”

  He squatted and peered into the post box for a few seconds. “Nah.”

  “GPS?”

  It took him a while longer. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good enough. Leave it in there. You can pick it up again later.”

  “It’ll get nicked.”

  “It won’t. Look, if it does, I’ll buy you a new one. A better one. All right?”

  He stood up, leaving the phone inside the box. I breathed a sigh of relief. As far as the cops were concerned, the phone had just disappeared. I hustled Dicko back into motion. We went farther down the side street and turned into another. No-one from the main road could see us now and no-one knew where we were going. I imagined Bertolissio getting cross and calling up maps of the area. They’d try the car parks first. I smirked at my cleverness in not parking in one. Now all we had to do was get back to the clubhouse without being seen.

  We reached the car without incident and I made Dicko drive through the tiny suburban backstreets, heading roughly south and west until we were completely lost. After a while, we came across a servo and, while Dicko filled his tank, I went inside and bought a new pre-paid SIM card for my burner phone. If the police found we’d been to this place, all they’d have is a random point indicating a random direction.

  Armed once more with Google Maps, I could now direct Dicko on a complex late-evening trip through Brisbane’s northern suburbs, avoiding all major roads and ending up at the back of the Devil’s Playthings’ clubhouse without spotting a single cop car or, I hoped, passing a single traffic camera. I got in the back of the car and ratted through the bags of stuff I’d bought. We’d wasted so much time dodging the cops that it was properly dark and there was no-one about. In an hour or two, people would be going to bed but I couldn’t wait that long.

  I stuffed a roll of gaffer tape, a torch, a selfie stick, a plastic bag full of meat, and a long-bladed pocket knife into a small backpack. I pocketed a pair of leather gloves and hefted the bolt cutters. I took off my T-shirt and put on the black, long-sleeved polo-neck sweater I’d bought. Then I rubbed black shoe polish on my face and hands.

  “Fucking hell,” Dicko said, watching me.

  I already felt like a dill and didn’t need him to comment. “I don’t want to be seen,” I said, defensively.

  “You’re stinking the car out. They won’t have to see you. They’ll smell you a mile off. Do not get any of that shit on the seats.”

  It was a bit late for that, I realised, but I assured him I’d be careful.

  I spent a couple of minutes familiarising myself with the phone. I needed to be able to take photos – with the flash off! – and maybe record conversations without having to work out how to do it all while hiding in a bush. It was all pretty straightforward except I managed to smear black shoe polish all over the screen and had to use my discarded T-shirt as a rag to clean it up.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Dicko asked. He sounded concerned.

  “I’m sure I don’t want to do this,” I said, honestly. “But it has to be done. I know if I was in there, Ronnie would move heaven and earth to get me out.”

  “You two are good mates, hey?”

  “No, not really. In fact, I don’t even like him that much. We just, sort of, got tangled up in this.” I looked at my assembled equipment and my polish-smeared hands. “I should go.”

  “I’ll be up the road there and parked just around that corner, If I hear running feet, I start the engine. If it’s you, I pick you up and we shoot through. If it’s a bunch of bikies with hammers, I floor it and you’re on your own. Fair goes?”

  I nodded, feeling glum, and got out of the car. I had a horrible feeling I wouldn’t be seeing it again.

  * * * *

  The house behind the clubhouse had a big shiny four-wheel in the drive that I had to squeeze past on the fence side. It was a tight fit and I cursed the mentality that makes city dwellers buy these big metal monsters. With the bolt cutters in one hand and the torch in the other, I could barely move without knocking into it with one or the other. I promised myself I would slip some money in the owner’s post box one day to pay for the scratches I must be making. If I had to come back this way at a run, I’d be able to go round the other side where there would be loads of space but, right at that moment, it was better to avoid being seen from the house. Some fat old guy waving a golf club at me would be the end of my whole plan.

  I slid past the car, out the back of the car port and carefully opened the gate in the garden fence. It creaked like a castle door in a horror movie but I stood inside the back yard, holding my breath, until I was sure no-one was co
ming. My heart was already racing and I’d started sweating. This is the easy part, I told myself. Get a grip. Steadying my breathing I moved down the garden. I’d gone about three paces when everything was flooded in dazzling white light.

  I stood frozen, completely exposed on a small lawn strewn with kiddies’ toys. They had a security light with a motion detector. Why hadn’t I thought of that possibility?

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” My stomach leapt into my throat. It was a woman’s voice and I spun to face it. But all I saw was empty garden and a wooden fence. “If that fucking light comes on one more time I’m calling the cops,” the woman said, loudly. “That is not how you treat your neighbours. It’s just bloody rude.” A man’s voice could be heard, low and placating. It was the couple next door. My heart started beating again. “No, you should bloody go round there and tell him,” the woman said, still loudly. “If you don’t, I will.” The man carried on trying to soothe her but by then I’d got my wits back, at least to the extent that I could sprint to the end of the garden and hide myself in the bushes that lined the boundary fence. It wasn’t much cover – especially with that security light going full blast – but it was better than standing around like a garden ornament, waiting for the neighbours to come round to start a punch up. I hunkered down in the foliage and looked back at the house. The woman was still shouting and now her partner seemed to be shouting back at her. The lights were on at the back of the house and there were no curtains, so I could clearly see inside. No-one came to see what had triggered the light, or what the shouting was about next door. I felt light-headed and was trembling from the scare I’d had but it looked as if I could have strolled in, whistling, kicked some of the brightly-coloured plastic junk around on the lawn and not worried about it.

  I turned to the fence. It was, as I had seen from the road, a steel, chain link fence about two metres high that ran all the way around the bikie’s property. Through it, I could see a concrete yard with a big shed, beyond which was the clubhouse itself – a two-storey brick building with few windows and ugly pipework. There were a couple of cars parked in the yard – one might well have been the Jeep I’d seen at Anning’s house, the other was some kind of fancy sports car – as well as a couple of big motorbikes. I could hear a low, thumping bass rhythm coming from the clubhouse. Lights were on in all the windows on both levels. The yard, too, was lit up by lights on the wall of the house and the side of the shed. At least I didn’t have to worry about motion sensors and floodlights.