Dead Point (29 page)

One pontoon lifted, the helicopter moved.

The drum bounced again, hit Steve, smashed him into the cabin. I heard his scream over the whup of the rotor blades.

The whole cradle slammed into the helicopter, tonnes of metal travelling at speed, a screeching, crushing sound, a string of sparks as the rotors hit metal, drums hitting the top of the cabin, flying into the air.

Sound like a car backfire, another, a flash of orange in the chaos below.

The blast pushed me backwards, took my sight away, took away my hearing. Instinctively, I turned my head away, turned my body, almost fell over. I didn’t look again, willed myself to leave the shed, go across to the jetty, to the bodies.

Susan was dead, no pulse in her neck.

I went to Marco, put my hand to his throat, thought I felt something.

No, my own hammering pulse.

I leant down closer, trying to detect breathing.

From his mouth a sweet, clean smell. His toothpaste. French toothpaste.

The second time I’d smelled it today.

I pushed down the neck of the sweater, saw where the swing chain had bruised him.

Then I ran, down the path between the buildings, across the moon-pale clearing into the trees, down the dark road, not stopping until I reached the car, got in, couldn’t get my breath, fumbled the key.

The engine started.

On the hill crest, I looked back. There was a yellow glow at the end of the peninsula. Dead Point was burning. Mick Olsen’s enemies in the drug squad would be pleased. All they’d had to do was slip me some surveillance clips and I did all their dirty work.

Surrounded by the silent faithful, some with tears in their eyes, we were watching a slaughter at the Docklands stadium when the starter at the Valley sent them off: eighteen hundred metres, class six for four-year-olds and upwards, apprentices claiming, going heavy.

I’d said I’d take the Youth Club to the football. I’d done it.

Four men with small radios held to their heads.

Number eight, the Kiwi horse, was called The Return. We’d stopped at the TAB on the way to invest our money.

‘This thing doesn’t come with a guarantee,’ I said. ‘Could run stone motherless last. Be warned.’

Norm O’Neill laughed. The others laughed.

‘I don’t think I’m getting through to you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want your families coming around to see me.’

They all laughed.

Now, we all heard the caller say:
They’ve strung out at the thousand, Pelecanos leads by two lengths from Armageddon, Caveat’s poking up on the inside, unruly mob following, bit of push and shove, going’s terrible
…

He named seven or eight other horses before he got to The Return.

We all looked ahead, mouths downturned, eyes on the game. An Essendon player, bandaged like a burn victim, was about to kick another goal. Some people don’t know when to stop.

I closed my eyes, opened them quickly. If I closed my eyes for long, I would have to be slapped awake by a paramedic, encouraged to breathe.

On the bend, Caveat’s gone up to Pelecanos, Armageddon’s struggling, Portobelle’s edging into it now and coming very wide is The Return
.

Four sets of eyes flicked at one another. Too soon to hope.

Hird kicked the goal. A dog could have kicked it. His teammates came up and patted him. Just another career statistic, what did it matter that it broke hearts?

At the four hundred, Caveat and Portobelle, and coming at them in the centre of the track is The Return, the Kiwi, could be a surprise packet here at big odds, very ordinary recent form
…

Heads down, no interest in the scene before us.

The Return’s coming at them, Portobelle stopping under the big weight, Caveat’s a fighter, won’t give in, it’s The Return and Caveat, it’s going to be The Return, she’s clear, the Kiwi raider’s going away
…

Four men stood up, hands in the air, making animal sounds of satisfaction in the midst of the grieving St Kilda faithful, who looked at us, murder in their eyes.

We sat down.

‘No surprise, Jack, me boy,’ said Norm O’Neill. ‘Had the pencil on the animal this mornin. Put me in mind of a certain Kiwi horse…’

‘Say the bloody name Dunedin Star and I’ll kill you,’ said Eric Tanner.

We made the collect on the way back to the Prince. It frightened me to see how much money was handed over to the Youth Club, fifties dispensed, repeatedly.

In the car, after crossing the city and listening to a great deal of hilarity, I said, primly, ‘I’d never have mentioned it if I’d thought you were going to put that kind of money on.’

Silence. Rain on the windscreen. The Stud had had a long day. The Stud and the Stud’s owner, who couldn’t remember when the day had begun, remembered, and tried to shut it out.

‘Jack,’ said Wilbur, low voice.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s our bloody money.’

The wipers needed replacing. So did the door seals. The clutch had that certain feeling too.

‘Point taken,’ I said.

‘You bastard,’ said Eric. ‘Had the oil.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘the study of class, sectionals, draw, going, trainer, jock, track, barrier, weight, these things help inform a decision.’

‘The oil,’ said Eric.

I pulled up outside the Prince, a space waiting for us.

‘And then there’s the oil,’ I said.

The men in the back seat attacked me, beat me around the head with rolled-up copies of the
AFL Record
.

We went in, had a few beers, no e-people in, didn’t talk about the Saints’ failings, too numerous to count, concentrated on the positives. All two of them. From Stan’s office, I rang Linda’s home number. Answering machine.

‘Jack,’ I said. ‘I’ll be home by six. Do with that information what you will.’

I said goodbye. The lads were in the process of shouting the bar, not an expensive exercise this Sunday evening. In the street, thoughts of sausages and mash and bed uppermost, my mobile rang.

‘Listen, I could use a hand.’ Cam.

‘Now?’

‘Yeah. Can’t wait.’

I wanted to groan. ‘What?’

He told me where he was. I did groan.

‘Bring a torch,’ he said.

In the unlovable depths of Coolaroo, Cam was waiting for me at the gate of a car wrecker’s yard. In the dark, in spotting rain, we walked down an avenue of car bodies. Hundreds of them, piled two and three high.

‘Artie lives down the back,’ said Cam. He was in biker gear: leather jacket, jeans, boots.

‘Where is he?’

‘Handcuffed to a Lada Niva. Hasn’t been helpful.’

We went around a large shed that served as an office and set off down another passage between wrecked vehicles.

‘Don’t they have dogs guarding these places?’ I said.

‘Should be halfway to Albury by now, the dog.’

I didn’t ask what he meant.

‘How’d you find Artie?’

‘Lizard. Big help, Lizard. Given up the wood business. Just today. Gone home to New Zealand. Wouldn’t know this shack was here.’ He went through a gap in the wall of old twisted metal. In a clearing stood an ancient weatherboard cottage, sagging everywhere as if dropped from the air onto the site. On its verandah stood two bench seats from cars. Pieces of motorcycle covered the rest of the space.

‘In the Lizards together, Artie and Almeida and Lizard,’ said Cam. ‘Lizard reckons Artie’s topped three people. Gets carried away.’

‘That Lada strong enough?’

‘Artie’s tired. Engine block fell on his leg.’

‘Don’t tell me any more. I’m a respected suburban solicitor.’

Cam led the way through the front door of the house. We were assailed by the smell of burnt cooking oil and cat urine with a strong underlay of blocked toilet.

‘Well,’ said Cam, ‘where’d you reckon he’d keep it? Tried all the usual places.’

‘Appliances?’

‘Only got a beer fridge.’

‘With money, they’re scared of fire.’

I went from room to disgusting room, shining my new truckstop torch over everything, unwilling to touch anything. The kitchen was the worst, cats lived there, dozens of them.

We went out the back door. Off the porch was a washhouse, the bottom of its door rotted away leaving jagged wooden teeth.

‘Looked in there?’ I said.

‘Yup.’

The door was jammed. Cam opened it with a kick.

It was the cleanest room in the place, just an old concrete laundry sink, a boiler the size of a 400-pound bomb, and grey dust and cobwebs.

I shone the torch on the boiler, tentatively tried the fire door. It opened with a screech, ashes spilling out.

‘Course it could be out there somewhere in a wreck,’ said Cam. ‘Probably is. Boot of some scrap iron.’

I was looking at the boiler’s fluepipe. The ceiling collar had come loose, tilted.

‘Hold this.’ I gave Cam the torch.

The top of the boiler was at shoulder height. I put both hands around the fluepipe just above where it entered the boiler and twisted.

It turned easily.

I lifted.

The fluepipe went up into the roof, its bottom end came out of the boiler.

I pushed it to one side, let it hang from the ceiling, stuck a hand into the hole in the boiler, found something to grip with my fingers, lifted.

The top of the boiler came off.

I dropped it into the sink, put my arm down the boiler, touched something wet, recoiled.

‘What?’ said Cam.

‘Don’t know.’

I reached in again, touched the thing.

Plastic, something plastic. Rain had come down the pipe.

I took hold, pulled. It was heavy. I got some of it out. Cam put the torch down, helped pull the rest out.

A heavy-duty garbage bag, grey, closed with a plastic tie.

Cam opened it. I held the torch.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ said Cam. ‘My sweet lord.’

On the way out, down the dark avenue of dead machine bodies, Cam carrying the bag, he said, ‘Artie’s storin chemicals down the back. Thought I came for em.’

‘As in?’

‘Amphie cook.’

‘That’s punishable by law.’

‘Law doesn’t know. The big man says drop in for a drink. Good day’s racin.’

We passed through the gate. Cam put the bag in the boot of the streetslut. I read my notebook by torchlight, found the number.

Cam lounged against his vehicle, looking at me.

A woman answered, no name. I gave her mine. Barry Tregear came on.

‘What now?’ he said.

‘Arranging your promotion,’ I said. I gave him the directions. ‘The shed on the back boundary,’ I said. ‘That’s where the fun stuff is.’

‘Never thought you’d end up my dog.’

‘Also there’s a bloke chained to a Lada Niva.’

‘Cruel and unusual,’ said Barry. ‘Chained to an old Ford Prefect’s bad enough.’

‘Help’s on the way,’ I said to Cam.

I drove to Harry Strang’s house in Parkville, got there just after Cam. Lyn Strang let us in, robustly sexy as always, flesh an alluring shade of pink. She left us in the study, standing by the fire. Only the table lamps were on and I could see the flames reflected in the glass doors of the lower bookshelves. Charlie Taub bookshelves, made long before my time.

Harry came in, freshly shaved, hair oiled, brushed, a herringbone sports coat over a fine-checked shirt.

‘Jack, Cam,’ he said. ‘On the little mudeater, Jack?’

‘Handsomely,’ I said. ‘My creditors send their thanks.’

‘Pleasure. Element of risk there. Bollie’s in order, I reckon.’

Harry was looking at the canvas bag on the floor next to Cam.

‘Brought your swag, I see,’ he said. ‘Always welcome to stay. Plenty of room.’

Cam picked up the bag and put it on the desk. He gestured to me to open it, long fingers, puffy tonight, the knuckles puffy.

I shook my head.

Cam unzipped the bag, opened it.

‘Stuff,’ he said.

Harry stepped over, looked. He put his hand in and took out a bundle of notes, fifties, put it back, eyes on Cam.

‘Ours,’ said Cam. ‘And the Hales’.’

A smile grew on Harry’s face. He looked like a teenager, a naughty teenager, discoverer of sex.

‘Well, bugger me,’ he said, eyes going back and forth. ‘Chance maybe I thought, coupla bright fellas like yerselves.’

He went to the door, opened it, turned back to look at us, left the room.

‘Darlin,’ we heard him shout, ‘forget the Bollie, coupla bottles of the Krug.’

An inaudible response.

‘And an emergency one,’ shouted Harry. ‘No knowin.’

He came back, closed the door. ‘Violence,’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t be involved.’

Cam looked at me, looked at Harry, brushed fingers across his lips. ‘Not that you’d notice,’ he said.

Krug singing in the veins, all fatigue and guilt banished by the tiny silver bubbles, I parked outside the boot factory.

Lights on upstairs. A moment of fright.

Linda’s car parked in the shadows. She had a key. As my breath went out, my carefree mood returned.

She was on the sofa, lengthwise, watching television, drinking what was probably Campari and soda.

‘This is what it comes to,’ she said. ‘The little woman at home, washing socks and waiting for the man to come home from drinking pots and pots of beer with the blokes at the pub.’

I took off my coat. ‘Did that for a while. Went on to drinking Krug with a sexy woman in a little black dress.’

‘You bastard. Come closer.’

I came closer, stood over her.

She put out a hand, ran it over me. ‘Just as I thought,’ she said. ‘You’re still excited.’

I leaned down and undid the top button of her shirt. ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is a new excitement. I am capable of several excitements in the same evening.’

‘Better damn be,’ she said as she pulled me down. ‘I’ve got a newsagent waiting.’

‘Butchers are meatier,’ I said as I sank.

When the lust was spent, we warmed the duck pies Linda had brought, sent them down with a Mill Hill shiraz. Mid-pie, Linda looked at her watch, found the remote control.

‘News, got to have the news,’ she said. ‘News is my life.’

I said, ‘I was taught it was rude to have sex wearing your watch.’

‘Not if it’s on your wrist.’ She blipped through channels, found what she wanted, a dollwoman speaking.