Good Money (21 page)

A strange mood took hold of me, bitter, aggrieved. I grizzled internally about how the old catchphrase
Victoria: on the move
applied to a place that was so often not. Not the capital anyway, with its choked heart, its hardened arterials. And there was not much fluid movement in the social fabric either, with its postcode apartheid, organised crime, disorganised crime. Its cold-blooded politicking and its hot-headed sports lust. A city whose idea of sophistication began and ended with caffeine.

Still, Melbourne did have its attractions. Specifically, Brophy. And towards it I gravitated with grim determination, reluctant to stop. But after a couple of hours the truckie wanted a piss and pulled in at a lonely service station, a vast concrete bauble in the middle of nowhere. I found a working public phone and inserted some change. The police-complex reception put me through to Phuong. ‘Stella? How's the countryside?'

‘Countryside? This isn't fucking England.'

‘You're having a nice time then,' Phuong said dryly.

‘Any news?'

‘Cesarelli's dead.'

‘I know, I'm on my way back to Melbourne now. Listen, Ben stole my laptop. Set up a manhunt, a BOTLO, send cars to all the junkie dens and pawnshops.'

‘Stella …'

‘I messed up. Everything is my fault. I didn't understand the danger Tania was in, I could have helped her.'

‘You're not at fault here. Tania wasn't a drug user, that's what you said. This isn't some gangland hit. It's probably about ransom.'

She had a point. Yet there
had
to be a connection between Adut and Tania. ‘All the time, I thought that address in the book was mine. I was paranoid and stupid. If I'd realised Adut had written down Tania's flat rather than mine … I don't know, maybe I could have done
something
, acted sooner. I'd give the book to you and —'

‘What have you got to be paranoid about?'

I didn't answer.

‘Stella? What have you done?'

I couldn't tell her, I couldn't speak.

‘Why didn't you tell me about the book straight away?'

‘I stuffed everything up,' I wailed. ‘I have to fix this. Tania's life is in danger, and it's all on me.'

‘Wait, go back. Tell me what you —'

I hung up on her. I looked to see if my truck-driving son of a gun was ready to go. He was still in the gents. There was a dollar in twenties left in my hand. What the heck. I prepared a soliloquy for Brophy's machine, but he picked up. The words flew away.

‘Still in the sticks?' He made it sound exotic.

‘I'm on my way home now.'

‘Can't wait.'

I put the phone down and beamed at the world. The service station was bathed in the light of a hundred fluorescent battens, illuminating the lovely industrial-sized waste bins and revealing the beauty of the litter that collected in the weed-choked shrubbery. A truck swept past; the back-draft showered me in a rain of warm dirt. If there was a more beautiful purveyor of petroleum products, I would like to see it.

I stood, smiling stupidly until a fellow in shorts, with a gut the size of an exercise ball, approached me. His body odour arrived a second later, a sour, rotten stench that snapped me out of my reverie.

‘Finished with the phone, love?' he asked, breath like a half-full wheelie bin.

‘Yes,' I muttered, and hurried away.

The truck came in to town on the Princes Highway and had just passed Flemington Racecourse. ‘This'll do,' I said and my mate pulled over. I thanked him and walked the rest of the way, along Epsom Road. Somewhere, a siren wailed. Overhead, a jumbo whined as it cruised low enough for me to read the numbers on the tailfin. Every toxic greenhouse fume, every grating noise, was a greeting for me, an urban welcome-home party. I muttered an apology. It was a city of wonders in a handsome corner of the country.

Half an hour later, I was home at last, standing in front of
PineView
, about to climb the steps to my building, when I remembered. Behind me, across the street, it lay. I estimated the trajectory of the arc.

The garden was neat, one of those little-old-lady gardens with a square of clipped lawn and a row of standard roses behind the picket fence. No one seemed to be at home. I lifted the latch on the gate and a security light came on. I walked along the front perimeter, peering into freshly spread mulch.

‘Can I help you?'

An elderly woman was coming down the driveway towards me, in an elegant blue wool-crêpe pantsuit, stooped from the mid-back, with a superb head of lavender hair.

‘Yes. I've lost my phone. I think it's in your yard.'

‘Ay?'

‘My. Phone.' I shouted.

‘Ay?'

‘My. Mobile. Phone.' I opened my palm and pressed invisible buttons then put my hand to my ear. ‘Phone.' I studied the ground, slowly walking, searching. The old woman must have shovelled tons of mulch since Saturday.

‘Now you listen to me. If you don't leave this instant I'm calling my son —'

There, near the tap, an odd shape. I dropped to my knees and dug the phone out of the pile of sticks. Back in my possession at last, it seemed pleased to see me, too. It blinked courageously, made a pathetic beep, and died.

‘There!' I waved it at her. ‘See? I found it.'

The senior mouth opened.

‘Now, excuse me,' I said. ‘I've got stuff to do.'

22

I RAN
up the steps to my flat, two at a time. Once inside I turned on the heater and found my phone charger. I plugged in the phone and stood with my back to the heater. Now what? Ben had my laptop
and
the report and he was probably trying to sell it to the highest bidder. I had no idea who that might be now that Cesarelli was dead. In order to work it out, I needed to think like Ben — in other words, like an imbecile. I tried for a while, but it was useless. All I could think about was Brophy. I picked up my landline and called him.

‘S'up?' A young voice.

‘Is Peter there?'

‘Who's asking?'

‘Stella.'

‘Yo, Stella, it's Marigold. Dad briefed me about you.'

Briefed
? One side of my face twitched. First impressions counted for a lot. Ted's mistake, coming over all parental from day one, had strained relations, and he had never recovered. ‘Yo, he told me about you, too. Is he at home?'

‘He's meditating. For reals. Does it every day. Seriously.'

‘Can you tell him I'm back in Melbourne?'

‘S'up, shorty? You sound upset.'

Shorty
? Did Peter tell her I was short? I was five-five in my socks. That's not short. Of course, nowadays young girls were towering giants, raised on a diet of chicken hormones and chemically enhanced infant formulae. ‘I've had a tough few days.'

‘True that. Bad thing happen ev'y day. You chillax, now, aiight?'

‘Um, okay.'

‘I'll tell him. Take care, aiight?'

‘Bye, Marigold.'

‘Lates, yo.'

I put the phone down and bit both lips. My frown could not have been deeper if my eyebrows had crossed sides. Peter's daughter had clearly watched one too many episodes of
The Wire
. Did ten year olds even watch
The Wire
? Perhaps — with the subtitles on. Innocence only lasts about five minutes now. Once you're weened, you're exposed to every dodgy human behaviour the imagination can muster, real and cyber. For the first time, I had a sense of the awful day-to-day dilemmas of the modern parent. The internet, Facebook, reality TV, porn, celebrity culture — a potpourri of moral predicaments. Poor, mixed-up kid. I was feeling appreciative of my sheltered upbringing.

There was no knowing how long I might be waiting for Brophy. I turned on the TV in time for the late edition news. The usual guff: factory closures, a celebrity marriage break-up, a Collingwood president hits out. Then:

Police Minister Marcus Pugh said today that police were close to solving the murder of notorious gangland figure Gaetano Cesarelli.

PUGH: Public safety is a matter of the highest priority for this government. I have every faith in the hardworking men and women of the homicide squad. There are several leads being followed and I trust the matter will be resolved soon.

I held a glass under the cask in the fridge and worked the tap. A single drop trembled and refused to fall. No wine left — things were worse than I had imagined. Time to visit my local bottleshop. I put one arm up a coat sleeve and before the other arm found its place, there were three raps on my door. It reminded me of the way Tania knocked: soft, almost apologetic. I took the coat off, slotted the chain across the door and opened it a crack.

‘Wondered if I might have a word?'

I spied a portion of Brodtmann in a buttoned-up double-breasted coat, fur collar turned up. ‘Of course.' I undid the chain and stepped back.

Chin jutting, shoulders twitching, he stood in the middle of the room. It didn't feel big enough to contain him.

‘Take your coat?'

‘No, thank you.'

I pointed to the kitchen table, but he looked confused. I sat there myself, a demonstration. He frowned, hesitated, and looked around like he couldn't believe the place could support human habitation. I drummed my fingers. I was late for wine. I was upset. I missed Brophy. My guest perched on my hardwood chair as one might a befouled public lavatory.

‘Are you all right, Mr Brodtmann?'

He coughed and said, ‘Well enough.'

‘Any developments?'

He shook his head, glanced up at me, and I understood that he couldn't or wouldn't have told me if there were.

‘Would you like a drink?'

The chin came out. ‘Scotch. Thank you.'

Ah. Now I'd done it. I was thinking of tap water. ‘I've just run out.'

There was a tiny quiver at the corner of his eye. ‘I see.'

‘We could to go to the pub. Okay with you?'

He sniffed but I could see he was warming to the idea. ‘Which pub?'

This struck me as an odd question, and it forced me to think carefully, since the answer might change his mind. ‘Not far from here, the Screaming Goat.' It was a trendy place that served craft beer, superfood salads and, best of all, was carpeted, so we could hear each other not speaking.

He shrugged, and I took that as a
yes
and put on my coat.

‘I wanted to thank you again for calling about Nina,' he said as we headed down the stairs. ‘Might not have known for days, weeks otherwise.'

‘No problem.'

Downstairs, Broad was waiting by the limousine. He spotted us coming down the path and opened the door for us.

‘The Screaming Goat, Broad. Heard of it?'

‘Sir?'

I told him where it was and we cruised through the streets of my neighbourhood in grim silence, until Brodtmann turned to me and cleared his throat. ‘We were close once, Nina and I. Did she tell you that?'

His need to be believed was palpable. ‘Yes,' I lied.

‘I wondered.'

I did the smile-without-teeth, the one that looks like a grimace. Mercifully, a small television, mounted on the rear of the driver's seat, was on and it suddenly caught his eye. Brodtmann used a remote to turn up the volume:
‘And in finance news, Veldt Minerals signed a deal today with the federal government worth over two billion dollars to take over the Shine Point refinery.'

Some distant memory involving the Shine Point project made me bolt upright. I knew little of the detail, but I knew CC Prospecting had been bidding for the deal. And I knew that Veldt Minerals was Merritt Van Zyl's company. So the two were friends
and
competitors. Brodtmann raised the remote and turned off the TV.

‘The Screaming Goat, Sir,' Broad announced. Brodtmann and I walked inside and found a half-dozen hipsters sitting on sofas arranged around an open fire, they were nursing spirits and playing a card game. At the bar a fellow with a number-one haircut sat with his back to us, hunched over a beer.

We took a small table by the window and Brodtmann removed his coat. I was willing to bet the charcoal-grey suit he was wearing cost north of four figures. A young woman, inked to the whites of her eyeballs, suggested the Western Australian gin and we agreed. When she'd gone, he asked me: ‘Do you know of a journalist by the name of McKechnie?'

‘Let me think … No.'

He put his fingers to his temples, rubbed circles beside his closed eyes.

‘Who is he?'

‘A troublemaker. He speaks to anyone who's had the slightest involvement with my family. Tries to get them to betray us.'

‘Sounds like an arsehole,' I said, and felt bad about it. I thought for a moment and said, ‘Wait. Is he the bloke who wrote that article about CC Prospecting not paying any tax?'