Who Sings for Lu? (23 page)

The big man knew he was in trouble in the manner of his summoning to the official Big Man’s office. When the boss’s girl Friday delivered it — pretty thing too, wouldn’t mind giving her one — it was not good. Even if she informed him in a reasonably friendly manner. Little slut behind the façade. How he’d love to get into those panties.
Bet she wears flimsy silk, something in her eyes says she’s not what she pretends to be. Bet the boss is plugging her, bet he is.

Kev couldn’t figure out why, though, the summons. Hadn’t put a foot wrong. Did a damn good job, better than just about every one of his detective colleagues: at least he had a consistent body count and better success in the courts against the smarmy, smart-arse lawyers making lucrative careers out of tricking and fooling police officers, making them look public fools once the media got on to it, all to get their guilty clients off. Kevin Ahern, though, was renowned as being good under defence counsel cross-examination; he knew most of their tricks and ploys, the voice tonal changes signalling a side-hit or one right in the back, smack up the blurter. He knew what pleased the beak and what pissed him off, how the beak gave certain leeway to different lawyers just as he gave it to certain cops. Knew how to act up to judge and/or jury, revealing just the right amount of hard-nosed, seen-it-all cop and just the right amount of decent citizen — a family
man like the judge, like the jury members were, just doing his job best he could. Many of his colleagues said he was an exceptionally good cop. They wondered why his promotions had stopped, while others of lesser ability and certainly less forceful personality sailed to higher and better rank and pay. Suck-arses all.

The commander they called the Big Man was a squirt compared to Kev the Rev, in both size and menace, reflecting a never-compromise streak any leader should show. Even his fuckin’ name was ordinary: Lawrence Smith. Woo, woo, scar-y. Kev had come up through the ranks with
Lawrence
— they called him Lawrie back then, or Smithy, and they talked real blokes’ talk about, what else, sex, sex and more sex, when it wasn’t about bashings, boastings of wankers you beat up in the police cells, down dark alleys; talked rugby league too, boxing and some liked the World Wrestling bullshit but not Kev. Lawrie, in the days he accepted the moniker, had done his share of sex talk
and
a bit of the heavy stuff with prisoners and temporary arrestees. Sure, not as much as some, Kev included, it being the only thing these cunts understood, law-breakers, criminals, the social nuisances and malcontents: a bit of plain superior muscle.
Some official thuggery to straighten up their ideas, let ’em know who’s boss, who fuckin’ rules this fuckin’ town.

Kev getting worked into a stew by the time he got up to the top floor Big Man’s office.

All right, mate, since we’re on our own.
Kevin opened up with, ‘How’s it goin’, Lawrence?’

‘Sit down, Kevin.’ Least the tone amiable enough. Till Kev sat and got to look into his boss’s eyes. Dead flat. Unblinking. A fuckin’ goanna lizard’s.

A while back he had wondered aloud to a couple of workmates he trusted,
How come
Lawrie
got promoted and I didn’t? Because the bloke’s a better bum-licker, mate, what else could it be.
Sitting here thinking Lawrie would not have forgotten Kevin confronting him about his promotion one day, pointing out his superior arrest-rate as well success in getting convictions.

When Smith had said too off-handedly, ‘Might be something to do with intelligence, Kevvy boy,’ it was like he had said he wanted to sleep with Kev’s wife.

Kev didn’t claim ‘intelligence’. Just thought a cop’s job, all the way to Commissioner, didn’t require brains. You just had to understand how your fraternal brothers thought, have an empathy with them, as cops were wholly black and white in outlook. Close to mateship with your police brothers, but not quite; and be well organised. As Kevin Ahern was. Oh, and know the right people. Which he didn’t, it would seem. It was the sneer Lawrie wore when he said it and how he said ‘intelligence’. Fuck intelligence.

How would he counter Smithy using that against him now?
I know.
‘We go back a fair old way, eh, Lawrie?’

‘We do, Kevin. We do.’

Kevin? Not Kev?

‘And please address me by my full name.’ Had the added cheek to stare unblinkingly until he got a nod from Kev.

‘You’ve been a good cop, too.’ Seemed to be the exchange.

Nice one. Didn’t expect that.
‘Thanks, sir.’ The sir just came out.
Should I give a compliment back? Nah, why hand him back the serve?
Kev just sat there. Feeling a little better.

‘Which makes it all the harder to understand why …’ the commander was saying and though Kev had no idea what was coming, inside he felt despair, a feeling of sick dread, as if he should know but had to wait to be confronted by it.

‘… you would go and fuck it up so badly. Mate, I don’t know.’

It’s why a man is here, because you know and I don’t. What have I done? I’m innocent, whatever it is.

‘… to put yourself into a position …’ Smith was intoning so he must have said something Kevvy missed, when how could that be? He was fuckin’ sitting right here.

‘I have some photographs, Kevin.’

Photographs? Of what? Not of me. Doing what? What have I done?

‘You’re on a big case involving someone of importance, whose name in the horse-racing industry is known to many far and wide. A case the public is demanding we solve. And what are you doing? You’re —’

Kev turned to where his superior’s eyes were, at the door: there’d been a single knock, a rap didn’t they call it? To see none other than the Commissioner himself walk in, accompanied by another in a suit,
looked more like a typical lawyer, smarmy prick. And Smithy had got to his feet.

‘Commissioner Fulton, sir.’

‘Greetings, Commander.’ Yet just looked at Detective Sergeant Ahern. Or, rather, right through him. Not so the lawyer whose lidded gaze was contempt Kev would normally smack the bloke’s mouth for.

‘Is this him?’ asked the biggest Big Man of them all. What a wanker, fuckin’ Fulton. Whole force knew he’d got there through his political connections and, as if anyone was ever allowed to say it in public, his connection with organised crime.
Hey, we’re all connected, arsehole. Just they put pips on your shoulders and pay you an outrageous salary. Cunt.

‘Stand up, Detective Sergeant,’ said the man himself, boss of all bosses, capo di capos.

All right, you ordered it.
Kev relishing this, standing up to his full six feet six-and-half inches in the old imperial measurement, two metres in the decimal system. Felt about a metre across the shoulders.

Felt like saying, ‘Nice view from up here. What’s it like down there? A bit shady?’ Fuck them. Playing some game with him.

‘Morning, Commissioner.’ Changing attitude, wondering if to grow instant legs on his stomach or tough this out?
Hey, I’m innocent.
Unless some old enemy had only just decided to nail him.
Yeah, but for what?
Trawling through his memory, but it was a big sea and a lot of nasty fish had swum in it.

‘Commander Smith was just telling me —’

‘Shut it, Ahern.’ Thus spake Lawrence of Arabia. ‘The Commissioner will let you know when he wants to hear from you.’

‘You haven’t shown him, Commander?’ This from Fulton.

‘No, sir. He arrived late.’
Then you arrived, God.
Look at the prick fawning all over the Commissioner.

Saw the exchange of looks between Commissioner Fulton and the lawyer-looking guy.
You purse-lipped cunt — say something
.

The bloke did. To the big boss. Whispered it. Fulton nodded his head. Kev waited.
Bring it on, fancy suit.
Lawrence had his tiny girl’s hands on a brown manila envelope, clearly containing the oh-
so-incriminating
evidence.

What could it possibly be?

His hatred festering at his life over, life as he knew it. The highlight being sexual encounter with Lu —
I wanted her from when she was a little girl, before she started school, that’s how much she meant to me.
Gone now. Just mind-boggling. They were gone, his testicles and penis — just taken away. Removed from his body the part of himself he treasured and pleasured most. Literally, his everything. Yet Rick’s mind, his very heart it felt, still craved sex. Even more so now. Like living in a giant warehouse full of food and you can’t eat one item.

Then this latest, as if a man wasn’t depressed and angry enough, the fuckin’ cop size of a horse in charge of investigating the crime
against
him, well, he turned up again and Rick was thinking Lu was right in the cactus now, after telling the cop where she worked, her home address. In answer to why he suspected his own niece he said she had held a bad grudge against him for years over believing he’d stolen money from her mother, his sister. ‘Who’s not all there, you understand?’

Only the giant detective then informed Rick he’d be charged with malicious something, laying false accusations, wasting police time, ‘and cop a slap for fucking me around. And when I slap you stay slapped.’ Jesus, you wouldn’t read about it.

So his plan to get her back — who cared if he went down too, worth it, what purpose for living now — the plan in tatters.
Like my
life, my removed testicles. What do I have to live for?

Weeks stewing, near going insane at thought of the profound injustice, all that frustrated desire in his mind, when Rick Duncan made a decision: he was going to the cops.

I’m going to the cops and owning up to everything. I go, she goes.
His time in jail he’d go on protection, join the other child sex offenders and informer snakes in the grass, while that conniving quartet rotted in the slammer same as him. Except he’d feel better than they did, for the revenge gained. And being among his own kind, he guessed. Not sure about that one. In some ways the thought frightened him more than anything, to be in the permanent company of sex criminals. Since he did not, truly, feel like one himself. Just so happened what he did was against the law. No fuckin’ law against precocious young girls turning a man on, driving him wild, luring with her sexuality, oh no.
And don’t worry, Lu
loo toilet-head, Lure
-ana O’Brien born a slut, born to throw it around, I’d bet a mill the big cop is giving it to you. Or rather, you gave it to him first and now he can’t get enough of you because I know what that’s like: I was one of your victims.

Yes, that’s right: vic-tim. Sexually, without question. If there is a God then I won’t even have to swear to him on oath as He will have seen it, how you were responsible and me, I just responded to male urges.
Twice
the victim.

Oh, your turn’s a-coming, Lu.

The decision alone, the thought, buoyed him unbelievably. Like a most terrible burden had been lifted. Now he’d see how she went, with her pussy getting the lezzie attention, oh, those big rough inmate ugly bitches would be all over her, into a bit of sado, inflicting pain, then she’d know all about real rough sex.
Little bitch, number of times you cried and whimpered, told me I was too rough. Wait’ll you see what happens in prison, dear
— oh,
I can’t wait.

And her trio of vicious coward mates? Well, were they going to get their young botties
plugged
,
split
by the jail kingpins, the lifers who were never going to be released. See how those four copped a suffering like he had. Teeth grinding together so hard they might crack.

He could hear their screams of pain as anal rape took place, he could imagine their disbelief. Felt like breaking into a screaming laughter. If
he knew how. If it didn’t disturb his fat ugly missus sat there in the living room most their married life, like a Buddha but missing its spark, serenity and looks from having inner peace.

On and on his thoughts of glee at his plan, hatred churning, existence of a wife he hated and she him, but thank God they couldn’t have kids, not that he wanted any ankle-biters. He hated kids.
Except for one when she was a sweet adorable young girl who turned out, what do they call it? A siren.

Well, that’s what you’ll be hearing soon, my sexy siren. Sirens. Coming for you. See who gets the last laugh.

You had to have systems or the work would get on top of you. And so would Rocky, but not in that way.
I wish.
With one other, an Aboriginal woman whose son was inside with Rocky, they were a trio working under the name of Cleenqik Ltd. Sal was fast and efficient, shy but sang all the time and lifted Lu’s heart at times just when she needed lifting. From ‘too much the thinkin” as Sal would say at Lu’s mood.

Lu would laugh and say, ‘Oops. There I go again.’ And brighten up as Sal sang some old country’n’western song and not so well either. C’n’W sucked, though not Sal. Lu couldn’t stop thinking about Anna Chadwick, her mother, their meeting, and how her uptightness had not allowed entry to a place where she was sure she would open up, could say sorry from the bottom of her
own
heart, not pushed by Rocky, even have a fuckin’ good bawl — if not for a moment expecting to be in the arms of a comforting Mrs C. No way.

I’m the one who planned the attack. And like she said to my face, ‘Don’t try and exonerate yourself. If you go on a robbery, you are a robber.’ But what woman wanted to see another raped, let alone the other stuff that went down? Some mates they turned out to be, fuckin’ animals. I bet no other animal on the planet has anal sex.

Yet for a while there she’d wanted that girl to feel real pain, know real suffering. No way did Lu own up to that with Mrs C. The daughter
reminded her, she thought, of Sarah Crichton, Vaucluse High School, whose own mother managed to break Lu’s already broken heart into more pieces. Maybe it was subconscious shit of getting revenge for all the crap went down with the Vaucluse High toffs, Sarah’s cruel mother?

Rocky’s sole objective was his new business. Someone had lent him money to buy an old van and cleaning equipment. Not only was he going to do a top job, he was out to clean up as many apartments and houses a day as possible, meaning the work day began at 7.30 am and ended as late as eleven, twelve at night. No task beneath him, Rocky did everything at incredible speed and efficiency. In between he was on his mobile phone arranging entry to apartments, calling people to drum up more business, introduce Cleenqik Ltd. And he was telling Lu they — not he: they — needed more staff. Since Sal knocked off at 6 pm he wanted younger employees with no family commitments, Sal looking after her jailed son’s children. Apparently he’d joined fistic forces with Rocky and some others in fighting off a gang takeover of their wing. The good guys won, of course.

She and Rocky slept at whatever apartment suited, separate rooms. Occurred to her one day that Rocky had no fixed abode and never did have one, not since he ran away from home aged whatever. Yet he lived like a well-employed person, in good-sized apartments at pretty good addresses. Not top notch as those were mostly all owned, Rocky explained. A couple of tiers down.

Separate rooms not her preference — she knew she was in love with him, whatever that meant to someone as screwed up as her.
Still, even I am entitled to love someone, aren’t I?

They copped a house over on the North Shore trashed by its tenants. What a mess. Rocky on the phone to the owners informing it would take four full days for three people to clean up and here was his quote, ‘Three thousand four hundred dollars.’ Lu thinking that $3400, minus wages to her and Sal, was good money. Then remembering she had a twenty per cent share in this, which felt unreal: a share in an actual business? Even though Rocky had said, ‘Well someone has to own the business. Why not us?’

The way he said ‘us’ made her all tingly inside. And he was right.
Just you never thought you might be the someone. Not in the Botanic Gardens situation either.

No sooner finished that call with a ‘Done deal, Rex. Invoice or cash? No problem,’ than he was on the phone again. A proper busy businessman, his manner always polite but never a pushover or licking ass. Someone tried to negotiate him down he’d say, ‘Sorry, but I value myself and my staff. That’s my price.’

On the phone talking, moving his free hand around a lot as if the person was right there. Shit, he was
alive
when it came to this business, no way was it not going to be a success. Surrounded by all this mess, proof that a lot of young men were basic animals, whether the tenants who fled here, or her erstwhile trio of buddies.

That slow smile of his. ‘Owner agreed to another grand to smarten up the outside. We need a new lawnmower. Garden tools.’

Rocky, eh? Man coming up in the world, just like he promised he would.
And I’m on the ride with him?