Disappear (13 page)

Henry Kaplan had always been a private man, rarely heard of outside the financial sections of the newspapers. The constant bankruptcy proceedings alerted the general news media to the story. Like vultures they began to circle, swooping in at the slightest scent of further drama. They took an interest in Kaplan’s marital history - three ex-wives - and speculated over his more recent lady friends.

Roger didn’t like the limelight either and avoided the press as much as possible. The journalists could find out very little about the equally private Roger Kaplan. What they saw was an unmarried man in his early forties, good looks, easily cast as the wealthy playboy.

Roger arrived at the office that morning well aware that he was late for the meeting with the receivers.

First, a drink.

He fixed himself a stiff whisky, swallowed it quickly, fixed another, and reflected on the events that had led to this week’s judgment.

Am I really prepared for the inevitable?

He lounged against the corner of his desk, eyes on the window, his gaze roaming over the city skyline.

At the insistence of his father, Roger had long ago established his own private family trust - despite the fact that he had no wife or immediate heirs. He had a little over a million dollars stashed away in overseas accounts as part of that trust. His escape fund. In the event of bankruptcy there’d be enough to live on, in style. It was money he’d gone to great lengths to ensure the receivers never found.

He knew his father and Masterton and the other directors had done the same. He also knew his father and Masterton had been involved in other illegal financial practices within the corporation. He’d turned a blind eye, but now he wondered whether he could be implicated if the others were found out.

Roger straightened his tie and went to the elevator. He would join the meeting, watch and listen closely, keep abreast of developments. If worse came to worse he wanted to sense it in advance. His nerve ends were on edge. He was beginning to wish he’d walked away from it all years ago.

When she responded to the doorbell’s ring at 2.30 p.m. the last person Marcia Lachlan expected to see was her ex-husband.

Lachlan was on his way back to his office, after interviewing a number of people in the western suburbs over another case he was working on.

‘Neil? What’s going on?’

‘I wanted to talk to you while Todd’s at school. I phoned earlier but missed you.’

‘Come in, then.’

He followed her into the living room. Both stood awkwardly. She crossed her arms and waited for him to speak. Lachlan made an effort to keep his tone reasonable. ‘It’s about this trip to Brisbane.’

‘How do you know about that? I was going to phone you, actually, this afternoon.’

‘Todd called me last night.’

‘Todd called you …’ A glint of understanding came into her eyes. ‘Late. After I’d turned in?’

‘Yes. He was practically having hysterics. I tried to calm him down but he hung up before I could get any sense from him. How was he this morning?’

‘Withdrawn. He’s making a big deal about this. It’s just for a few days.’

‘It could be longer.’

‘So you’ve come here to complain, have you? To take his side, gang up on me. My father is sick for Chrissakes …’

‘No. I agree. You and Todd should go.’

‘You do?’

She sounded wary.
Why is she like this?
Lachlan wondered. Always defensive.
It’s not as if I’ve been giving her a hard time.
‘Of course I do. But we have to consider Todd’s feelings as well. Our separation’s put him through an emotional wringer.’

‘I know that, Neil.’ Her tone was icy, ready to pounce.

‘I know you do. That’s why we have to work this situation in with him.’

‘How? I can’t stay the weekend. I need to be with Dad as soon as possible.’

‘You go. Let Todd spend the weekend with me, as he expected. I’ll bring him up to Brisbane Monday morning. I’ll fly up with him.’

‘What about your job?’

‘I’ll take the day off. It’s only one day, after all.’

‘You never felt that way while we were together. The job was more important.’

‘Marcia …’

‘Now you’re a new man, it seems.’

‘Is there any point in going over all that again? I didn’t come here to cause an upset. Just to talk about Todd.’

She shrugged. ‘Okay. I suppose it’s a good idea.’

‘You’ll tell him?’

‘As soon as he gets home. I don’t want him moping all night, laying some blasted guilt trip on me.’

‘Is there something else bothering you, Marcia?’

‘I need a life too, Neil. I haven’t had much of one these past few years.’

She won’t let go of the anger. But now it seems worse.
‘I’ll pick him up, usual time, tomorrow?’

‘Sure.’ She turned, arms still folded, went towards the kitchen. No good-byes.

‘See you tomorrow night.’ Lachlan left, wishing he hadn’t had to make the visit, but glad that Todd would be with him on the weekend. He drove to the office, recalling many of the darker times during the last years of his marriage. The steel in Marcia’s eyes and the edge in her voice had brought back the memories.

He made an effort to block them out and, to his surprise, found himself thinking about Jennifer Parkes instead.

The office of small, independent newspaper People Power was housed in a ramshackle building in the poorer district just outside the central business area of the city. The inner walls, once a brilliant white, were dull grey now, peppered with stains and rising damp, the carpets too worn, the light bulbs naked.

Rory McConnell, dressed in denim jeans and jacket, white Reeboks with blue trim, entered the building and made his way to the cluttered, smoky room at the far end of the ground level.

Harlan Draper sat at his desk, shoulders hunched, poring over a spread of layouts. A pipe rested comfortably in the left corner of his mouth. Rory was certain, always had been, that the pipe was like the endless stream of French cravats and designer sportswear – there for effect more than anything else. Part of the image Draper enjoyed projecting: socially minded, eccentric founder and editor of an independent publication that championed the rights of the underdog.

Draper had launched People Power at the tender age of twenty -one, way back in the anti-Vietnam, flower power days of the early 70’s. On the wall behind him hung a montage of photographs and front-page tear-sheets from over the years. The largest photo, at the centre of Draper’s do-it-yourself mural, was a blow-up print showing Draper on the streets, selling the very first issue. He’d been surrounded by an assortment of hippies, complete with love beads, multi-coloured flowing garments, all offering the then fashionable V-shaped peace sign to the camera.

Draper, unrecognisable back then, was the pivotal figure. Full beard, shoulder length black hair, dark coat and dark trousers, open neck shirt with an Eastern symbol medallion glinting in the sun. Very Beatle-esque, circa The Maharishi.

Draper looked up. Rory, hands in pockets, slumped down in the weathered chair opposite him. ‘Were you a guru back then?’ Rory glanced at the photo, then back to Draper. It was something of a ritual, Rory with his irreverent comment, as cheeky as possible, every time he came in.

Draper, though tired of the ritual, joined in the banter. ‘Gurus were taken seriously back then.’

‘When did the flower children stop hanging on your every word?’ Rory grinned widely. ‘When the hair went? Or when you kept smoking cigars in the office after it became illegal.’

Draper snorted. ‘What the landlord doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt him.’ These days he was clean-shaven. The hair, thin and vastly receded, was combed across his head in lonely strands. But his eyes still had their youthful vitality, a piercing messianic stare that had travelled the revolutionary road with him from the student protests of the sixties to the fight for the environment in the twenty first century. ‘The reason I put up with you, McConnell,’ he said, ‘is because I like the ideas you keep coming up with. The latest one has potential.’

‘Which one? I pitched five article ideas to you last week.’

Draper’s hand skimmed across the papers on his desk. Effortlessly, he plucked Rory’s sheet from the mess. ‘This thing on that damned plunderer Kaplan. I like the angle. The mega-yuppie who ravaged the capitalist system that created him, causing one of the most drawn-out corporate crashes the country has seen since the days of Skase and Bond.’

Rory smiled inwardly. He’d known Draper would go for that one. ‘And I’ve got the inside track. My lady’s mother is an old friend and ex-business partner of the Kaplans.’

‘Yeah. You say she was heavily influenced by Kaplan. Turned out hard headed and caring only for business, like him, which caused an estrangement from her daughter.’

‘The human side of the super capitalists, Harlan. Showing just how screwed up their families are.’

‘Juicy. You think you can dig up some dirt on Henry Kaplan?’

‘Sure of it.’

‘Okay, go for it. Usual set-up. Advance plus expenses.’

On his way out, Rory parodied the hippies in the photograph. He gave the V sign to Draper. ‘Peace, brother.’

‘Fuck off, McConnell. Just give me an article that makes sure Henry Kaplan doesn’t get any peace at all.’

Henry Kaplan put down the phone. The news from his lawyers was what he’d been hoping for. He picked up the phone and spoke to his secretary, ‘Jodie. Have Roger and Harold come to my office.’

‘Yes, Mr. Kaplan.’

He reached for the console that brought the radio to life. The news broadcast was seconds away and he expected the radio people already had the latest on his case. The familiar signature tune introducing the report filled the room as Roger entered.

‘News,’ Roger began.

‘We’ve got our breather,’ Kaplan confirmed. ‘Listen.’

‘The Harry Houdini of Australian business, Henry Kaplan, has done it again,’ the male broadcaster announced. ‘Less than a few hours after the receivers moved in, the Kaplan Corporation has been granted an injunction against any immediate liquidation proceedings. An appeal against the bankruptcy finding, handed down earlier, will be heard in ten days. Financial analysts believe the stay of execution is a temporary one, with bankruptcy proceedings to continue as soon as the appeal is overturned. In the meantime, Henry Kaplan has less than two weeks to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat to save his ailing empire.’

Harold Masterton had entered the office during the second half of the broadcast. Like Roger, he beamed at the news.

‘Well done, Henry. Little do the pundits know we do indeed have a rabbit, and his name is Conrad Becker. Provided he signs on the dotted line for Southern Star next week then we have the projected cash flow to win the appeal.’

‘And if he doesn’t then we’ve played our last card,’ Roger surmised.

‘He will,’ Kaplan insisted. ‘But on the practical side, gentlemen, in the event that the appeal is lost then we have two more weeks to ensure we’ve each made all the private preparations, financial and otherwise, to cope with life in the aftermath. Understood?’

Roger and Masterton nodded.

Kaplan gave both of them an intent stare to further drive home the point. There was a hidden meaning to his words, one that only he could know.

The world believed his salvation lay in the result of the court appeal. In fact, financial disaster was the least of his worries.

The real stakes were much, much higher.

It was an early service, 9.45 a.m., squeezed in to fill a gap in Reverend de Castellan’s schedule. De Castellan, mournful eyes, dark robes, was more animated than some people might expect of a reverend. There was a sense of drama to his movements as he took his place at the podium.

He cast his eyes over the small group. Jennifer sat in front, flanked by Meg Tanner and Henry Kaplan. Roger was in the row behind, seated beside Cindy Lawrence, Carly Parkes and Rory McConnell.

‘Eleven years ago I conducted a service for Brian Parkes,’ de Castellan began, ‘which was long overdue even then. And although it is now eighteen years since he was last seen, that passage of time doesn’t discount the importance of today’s service. Today we commit Brian’s body to the earth and his soul to the Lord. This is a proper, holy farewell and a special remembrance of Jennifer’s loving husband, a father young Carly never knew.

‘For today’s service we shall listen to Berlioz’s Requiem. Firstly, though, I shall read from Psalm twenty-three as we pray for a place in heaven for the spirit of Brian Parkes.

‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters …’

There was a timeless comfort to the words of this piece, Jennifer thought. De Castellan had read the psalm at the earlier memorial service, and commencing with the same piece now provided a bridge from that service to this. She allowed herself to be transported back to that earlier time. Carly had been six, elfin smile, head of dark curls. Jennifer pictured the little girl sitting beside her, tiny hands clutching her mother’s fingers, not fully understanding the event but knowing it had something to do with the father she’d never met.

Jennifer tilted her head, eyes cast back to where Carly sat. The dark hair was straight now, like her mother’s, a serene beauty masking a volatile spirit. They exchanged glances, acknowledging the solemnity of the occasion. They had spoken briefly, outside the church, before the service had begun.
What must she make of all this?
Jennifer wondered.

Rory was beside her, dressed smarter than usual. He had smiled politely at Jennifer a number of times; he seemed different today, more reserved, and it struck Jennifer it didn’t suit him. Was it just because of the funeral, the boyfriend being supportive? He’d never appeared that type to Jennifer. She wasn’t sure why but she’d never trusted Rory McConnell. Something about him didn’t ring true.

‘… He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake …’

Carly, Roger, Henry and Meg had all been at that earlier service. Many others weren’t here today. Jennifer’s and Brian’s parents, since deceased; friends and clients of Brian’s, long since scattered by the winds of time and change.