On the Run

by Colin McLaren

  Through the corridor walked an exhausted tenant from the next-door apartment, who had tired of waiting for the lift and had just climbed the twenty-one flights to practically crawl into 2105 and close the door behind her. This prompted the pseudo lift-repairman to tap softly on 2103 to allow Henri and Fountain a quick unobserved exit. A flick of a switch and the lift groaned to life, transporting them all to the depths of the basement carpark.

  The steely sounds of an unracking Winchester pump-action shotgun sent shivers through the ACA office. Heads turned to gawk in the direction of the noise, at Leigh, who was clearing the shells from his weapon. He noticed the stares and apologised.

  ‘Sorry, guys,’ he said, ‘just back from a raid.’

  He strutted past the desks, past Inspector Mack’s office, catching his loud comment as he drew closer.

  ‘There’s mail for you,’ said the Inspector. His right hand flung out from his desk towards the corridor, holding an official-looking letter. ‘Have fun,’ were the only two other words he offered. He didn’t so much as raise his eyes from his daughter Chloe, who sat pensively in front of him, as Leigh reached in and accepted the envelope. Leigh couldn’t help but notice in that brief moment before he made a hasty retreat to the corridor that her face bore the tell-tale puffy redness of one who had been crying for hours. She dabbed at the end of her damp nose with a tissue from a box on her father’s desk.

  ‘ We never see you any more, Dad,’ she sniffed.

  ‘Of course you do, honey puff,’ Mack continued his attempt to console.

  ‘When, Dad? Christmas? Birthdays? That doesn’t count.’ Both Chloe’s hands began to tremble uncontrollably. The girl was clearly troubled emotionally and physically.

  ‘Are you going to Paris again with that … that … Dorothy?’ She looked down, fascinated with the lines of her ribbed pantyhose and began to pull at her knees to straighten the stockings.

  ‘She’s my wife now, Chloe.’

  ‘Yeah, and we’re your ex-kids,’ she sulked. Chloe’s fidgeting progressed upwards to her hair as she ran her fingers through her matted hair.

  ‘Honey puff, you look a mess. Are you still going to those nightclubs?’

  ‘What do you care, anyway?’ Chloe bit down hard on her lip and drew a little blood, which she wiped with one of her soggy tissues.

  Inspector Mack sat heavily in his large leather desk chair and looked cautiously through the glass partition wall of his office at the occasional raised head. Chloe pulled another wad of tissues from the box and continued sobbing.

  Leigh had walked to his own desk, frowning at the official-looking envelope in his hand. Sandra came in after Leigh. She cleared her revolver and handed it to Leigh, who stowed both firearms safely in the locker as well as the shells and his jacket. Jude strolled out of the tearoom, mug in hand, and beamed at her friends.

  ‘Well, now. Welcome back, Missy,’ said Leigh as he closed the firearm cupboard.

  ‘Why, thank you, kind sir. I’ve missed you all so,’ said a smiling, happy Jude.

  ‘I heard you made a big splash, babe. How many crooks?’ enquired Sandra.

  ‘Seven all up, and one that got away. Jumped a plane to Lebanon, last heard.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s what we like, a nice extradition for Jude sometime next year. Hey?’

  Sandra picked up her folder and pen and walked into the tearoom. She took a seat at the makeshift desk she had set up four or five days earlier beneath the tearoom phone. A curious Jude left Leigh to open his letter, opting to follow Sandra instead. Puzzled as to why she had given up the best-placed desk in the office, she cornered Sandra with the question.

  ‘No reason, babe,’ said Sandra.

  ‘Like the biscuits that much, do you, Sandra?’ an unbelieving Jude replied.

  A pregnant pause followed. Sandra pretended to fuss around her new desk, doing her best to avoid the forthcoming question. She lifted her eyes to meet Jude’s.

  ‘No news?’ asked Jude.

  Sandra pondered the question, knowing all she could really offer was a white lie. She stopped making pretend entries into her diary concerning the previous raid.

  ‘I wish there were something I could tell you,’ was all she said as she dropped her eyes from Jude’s questioning face and back to the diary page.

  Jude took the hint and wandered out, muttering ‘I wish’ under her breath as she left.

  Sandra put down her pen and sat in silence, her loyalties torn. She knew she shouldn’t tell Jude of the communications between herself and Cole. Jude would take that information hard. She quickly logged on to the server, opened her email file and drafted an overdue reply.

  Dearest Ingrid,

  I was so shocked to receive your tragic news. You can’t imagine how I feel for you in this dreadful situation. I’m waiting by the phone day and night for your call, girlfriend; whatever help or support you need, just ask.

  Always in my thoughts,

  Sandra

  Satisfied, she clicked ‘send’ and went back to her diary entry, only to be interrupted by a shout from the outer office.

  ’You bloody little ripper!’ bellowed Leigh. He had opened the official-looking envelope from FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, to find an acceptance letter to his application; he was on their course. Better still, he was on a plane to America next week.

  Henri sat at his pigeon-hole desk in analytical heaven. He had never had a job quite as fascinating as the one that had been presented to him with the Detective Benjamin case. While Donny had proved to be a very clever drug dealer, able to move with ease among the shady underworld, he was a fool to himself. He seemed to enjoy, if not splash about, every ill-gotten dollar that he had made. He was, in the area of cunning, Inspector Mack’s antithesis. Donny squandered his lovely at a rate almost greater than which he acquired it. The statistical spreadsheet on Henri’s computer was filling quickly, thanks to the information, account codes and data obtained during the covert search of Detective Benjamin’s plush apartment.

  As Henri tapped away at his keyboard he was interrupted momentarily by Spud, who was personally delivering photocopies of Inspector Mack’s diary, for handwriting comparisons against the Citroën 2CV brochure. Spud looked around the simple office and was a little taken aback; he had somehow expected that the Toe Cutters would have state-of-the-art paraphernalia: ultra-modern, chic-tinted, blue glass-walled panels, whizz-bang techno equipment with huge flashing banks of monitors beaming images and data from around Australia. Instead he was looking at the same cheap, poorly assembled office furniture that was found in every other department. Nothing like the popular television cop shows. Henri was squeezed at his overstretched desk between monitors stacked on boxes and books and folders encircling his chair on the floor.

  Spud threw the envelope into the only space he could see—on top of Henri’s busy fingers.

  ‘Don’t say I don’t ever do anything for you.’

  Before Henri had time to look up or reply, Spud corrected himself. ‘Better still don’t say anything, you’re a Toey.’

  He looked slightly nervous, standing as he was in foreign territory. He leaned over to take a more probative interest in the spreadsheet in front of Henri.

  ‘Donny?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘Well, now, he’s doing alright.’

  ‘What with rent, seventeen eBay purchases for leather coats, watches and even a motorbike. Take living expenses and lifestyle, he only needs to earn about $200 000 a year to keep this up.’

  ‘Not a bad salary for a detective, eh?’

  Spud noticed a second screen with a live camera image eyeballing a rather plush lounge room with a spectacular vista across Port Phillip Bay.

  ‘Who lives there?’ he enquired, his nose almost meeting the screen as he peered into the room, curious to ascertain the height and placement of the apartment.

  Henri placed a finger across his lips.

  ‘Keep it to yourself. That’s Donny’s apartment.’
r />   ‘Very nice,’ said Spud. ‘But where’s the camera?’

  ‘It’s in his laptop, through his internet connection.’

  ‘Cool.’ Spud was suitably impressed. ‘But can’t he tell that the camera is on?’

  ‘No. I killed the solenoid.’

  ‘So you can only watch when Donny’s online?’ asked Spud.

  ‘Yep, but lucky or unlucky for us, he never seems to bother turning it off. It’s not pretty sometimes.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘When he checks out the hard-core porn sites.’

  ‘Well, what about Mack?’ Spud enquired, still with a fair level of anxiety.

  Henri merely shook his head. ‘So far, stuff all. He’s much cleverer.’

  ‘There’s his share portfolio,’ offered Spud.

  ‘We know all about that, and his bank accounts. But his wife’s business can cover all that,’ replied Henri.

  A dejected Spud turned to walk from the office. Henri rose from his desk and joined him.

  ‘Give it time,’ urged Henri. ‘There’s lots of stuff happening. Just give it a bit more time.’

  ‘But what about Cole? He’s stuck out there, somewhere,’ said Spud, frustrated.

  ‘Give it time,’ Henri urged again as he escorted Spud from the office.

  It was mid-morning and just like every other morning on Stromboli Island—as hot as blazes with the perfect holiday pace: slow. The past eight or nine days had been much the same for Tommy, since he had checked into Casa Greco, a cash-only bed and breakfast. He had received Sandra’s email reply on day six, and had felt comforted.

  His room was on the ground floor of the 100-year-old whitewashed building that was Casa Greco. Very little of the craftsmanship that had gone into its construction was now visible through the masses of wisteria that adorned all the façades and trailed elegantly over the rich bottle-green balconies. Tommy could stand on his balcony and take in a view of an orchard full of ripening nectarines and peaches; on occasion he would see a stray goose wander through to sample the produce. Below that, the panorama spread to take in the dotted terracotta rooftops of the village, which were bordered by a thick ribbon of black sand that drew his eye out to the ocean, some 400 metres below. Blue-hulled fishing boats with matching white sails bobbed in the waves.

  On his first day, Tommy had ambled along Via Vittorio Emmanuelle, the main street of San Vincenzo, taking in the aromas of freshly baked biscuits, strong coffee and arancini, the superb savoury rice balls filled with eggplant and tomato. The eclectic mix of food shops wound along with the laneway, up the tiny hill that sat alongside the mother volcano. There were no cars on Stromboli, just the occasional moped. The only other traffic, Tommy discovered, was foot traffic. There was no electricity and the population survived with the use of generators. The proprietor of his B&B had allocated Tommy his own hand-torch. By 10 p.m. of a night, the two streets and few laneways on the island were illuminated only by the tourists’ torches flickering as they wandered in search of a candle-lit restaurant for an evening meal.

  It was just the pace that Tommy needed after the calamity of the previous weeks. He rose by mid-morning to face a breakfast of duckegg frittata with garden tomatoes and Greek coffee, prepared by his hosts, Nick the Greek and his wife, Aggie, two runaway Athenians who had found the whitewashed buildings of Stromboli more home than home. With his red towel, sunscreen and bag of stone fruit, Tommy would then amble down the gravel footpaths to the beach and hire a royal blue deckchair and matching umbrella for the day. Most days he had the company of Cinzia, a tiny, almost bird-like Sicilian schoolteacher on holidays, another guest at the B&B.

  For hours the two swapped stories of their many travels throughout Europe, and their mutual passion for the music of Italy. Artists Tommy enjoyed, like Pino Danielle and Fabio Concato, were heroes to Cinzia also. He was ever mindful to avoid any conversation that included Australia. The interesting and somewhat shy schoolteacher believed that while Tommy may have been born an Australian, he had lived most of his life in London—a premise he encouraged. Indeed, he revelled in the opportunity to totally relax for the first time in months.

  30th June

  Inspector Mack was having some trouble getting to his Sidchrome toolbox. It was now literally buried in a collection of snail bait, pesticides and other less attractive gardener’s needs. All designed to deter a prying detective, should he ever suffer the misfortune of a raid by the Toe Cutters. He eventually dug it out and laid it down on the timber workbench. There was the almost 100 000 euros that he and Dorothy had squirrelled away over the past twelve months. He liked the rewards of the twilight of his career, and had virtually forgotten all the disappointment that he had carried in recent years. Now, he was happy to be retiring with just the rank of a Detective Inspector, and a prince’s ransom.

  Dorothy was rugged up in her winter woollies and wearing a pair of black gumboots and heavy green canvas gardening gloves as she prodded in the daffodil bed on all fours with her butt facing the garden shed. Inspector Mack leant over the workbench and turned the CD player on. The sound of Edith Piaf, ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’, wafted melodically through the garden speakers, catching Dorothy’s attention. She looked up at her man; he was now approaching her with a glint in his eye.

  ‘How much, my love?’ he enquired contentedly.

  Dorothy had just pulled up the last of four Vegemite jars, filled to the brim with rolls of Australian currency.

  ‘At least $100 000, handsome,’ she purred.

  She discarded the soiled garden gloves and walked into the shed with an armful of jars. Inspector Mack had recently purchased a large metal-clad and pop-riveted shipping chest. Just the sort of thing immigrants would use to send precious items home. The sturdy travelling box was lined with three-ply sidings and base. For the previous week, Mack had come home each night after work to remove, very methodically and patiently, the pop rivets from the casing to allow the three-ply panelling to be removed.

  Dorothy and Mack placed their booty on the workbench and spent the next hour carefully lining the travel case with the now large pile of European and Australian currency. Over this they secured a layer of dry handkerchiefs that had been previously doused in dissolved mothballs; just the sort of thing to deter a curious customs dog. Once this was completed, Dorothy stepped back inside the house, leaving Mack to reaffix the lining to the sides and pop rivet the steel facing. There was only an hour before the DHL courier would arrive to collect the chest.

  Dorothy emerged from the kitchen carrying two long-stemmed glasses and a bottle of Moet & Chandon. The Inspector finished his task by wiping all the surfaces of the packing case to ensure that it was free from fingerprints, Australian soil and grime. The pop of the champagne cork ceremoniously signalled the end of their joint task. It had been a long afternoon in the garden.

  ‘To us, and Beaucaire,’ announced Dorothy as she raised her glass in the air. The Inspector too raised his glass and clinked the side of hers as they both sampled the champagne.

  ‘Non-vintage, my princess?’ Mack questioned with a frown, the instant he had swallowed the wine. ‘Only vintage for us in a month’s time back in France, my petal.’

  ‘When do you get the million, my darling?’ Dorothy whispered into his ear.

  ‘The moment the dagos put the container on the ship in Italy, princess, just after we arrive in Beaucaire.’

  ‘Can I help you come and collect the lovely?’ Dorothy giggled as Mack emptied his glass and placed it on the bench. His hands found a new task in unfastening the buttons of Dorothy’s cashmere cardigan and helping her out of her woollens.

  A grin from ear to ear was permanently plastered on Leigh’s face as he strutted around the office. He made sure that his journey was stopping all stations. At every desk he paused to spread the news of his acceptance to the FBI course. Of course, no one could be told where the training facility actually was, not even Leigh, such was the secrecy associated with the covert course. He had planned
to head out early tonight to have drinks with the crew before he packed his suitcase for the great unknown. Having finished his round of gloating with the immediate cast of characters, he went off in search of the team, hoping to find another ear to hear the tale for the fifteenth time.

  He found Sandra at her desk.

  ‘Leigh, if you’ve come in here to tell me about that fuckin’ trip of yours again, I’ll throw something at you!’

  Truth be known, Sandra liked Leigh; in fact, she thought he was quite cute. Tall, a few years older than her, broad shouldered with a body as hard as armour, and a libido that never went to sleep. Sandra had a golden rule with friends and workmates. ‘Don’t fuck your friends or sooner or later you’ll have no fuckin’ friends,’ she told herself.

  But every now and again she would look at Leigh and think, ‘Just once. I wonder what it would be like, just once’.

  ‘An all-expenses-paid trip to the States, champer, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Yeah, Leigh, I’m over the moon for you,’ she said with a generous lashing of insincerity.

  ‘Let’s grab a drink. Time to get away from this desk, and this phone, champer.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘He’s not going to ring.’

  She wasn’t too sure whether Leigh was being flippant or in fact realistic with this comment. She pulled her weary self upright, grabbed her handbag and locked her arm onto her friend’s arm as together they walked down the corridor to Spud’s office.

  ‘Come on, champer, let’s see if the other champer is up for a drink,’ she said. Leigh laughed good-heartedly.

  Inside Spud’s office an analyst talked on the phone and scrawled on a notepad simultaneously. Commissario D’Alfonso was providing a crucial update into the investigation on Massimo and the Plati Mafia. Spud waved his pen frantically in the air to silence the still-laughing Sandra and Leigh. Their mouths closed.