Good Money (6 page)

I flipped through the book again, slowly this time, studying each page. Then I noticed something on the page opposite the one with my address; it was the word:
Funsail
. It was circled and had arrows coming off it, leading around the page to my address.

Funsail?

An employee of the transport corporation began herding us from our tram, across the intersection and onto a packed tram in front. As I trudged along with everyone else, I heard quite a lot of whinging from the other passengers. Sure, it was raining again, and the temperature could freeze the tears in your eyes, but there were worse things that could happen.
Toughen the heck up, Melburnians,
I thought.
Toughen up yourself
, they said back to me, with their red, frozen eyeballs.
You know what you should do.

Yes, I did.

I shunned the tram and kept on walking. Twenty minutes later I entered the grounds of Ascot Secondary College. I went directly to the office, where a harried woman slid open the reception window.

‘Mabor Chol please, he's in year ten I believe.'

‘What's your relationship to the boy?'

‘Stella Hardy, I'm a social worker with WORMS.'

‘Gee, sorry to hear that,' she chuckled.

‘Look, can you please just page the student Mabor Chol?'

‘Do you have clearance? Authorisation from a parent or teacher? We've had issues in the past.'

‘How about the student counsellor, she in?' I asked.

Still chuckling to herself, she slid the window shut and turned on a staticky mic. ‘Student counsellor to the office.'

The waiting area was directly opposite the principal's office. While I waited, I relived the trauma of high school, flashbacks of the hours of waiting for punishment, followed by my customary excuse: ‘But it was all Shane Farquar's fault, sir!'

The counsellor bustled up to me, in a bright orange, over-sized jumper. I launched in like a woman on a mission, which I was. ‘Mabor Chol. I need to see him.' I held up both my WORMS ID and my Department of Justice ID. She gave them a nod and started writing on a clipboard at the office window.

‘Dear Mabor, such a good kid, you know? Really bright, hard working.'

‘He's terrific, amazing. Look, this is urgent, can you hurry it up?'

‘What's it about?'

‘It's a confidential matter.'

‘I'll keep it confidential.'

‘It's about … his brother. You are aware of his brother's death?'

‘Yes. Tragic. Would you like me to be present?'

‘No, thanks. It's all strictly … confidential.' I was led to a room and told to wait again. Thirty seconds later, Mabor shuffled in. When he saw me, his eyes darkened with scorn. ‘What?' he demanded.

He watched me as I closed the door — then we were alone. ‘I'm not the enemy, you know,' I said.

A hint of a sneer. ‘You? You're nothing.'

‘Then who is?'

He shook his head and sat behind a desk. ‘What is this? Huh? What do you want?'

‘Are you in trouble?'

His face was deadpan, but his thumbnail was gouging at a crack in the desktop.

‘Can you tell me what's going on with you? Who are you protecting?'

‘You spying on me?'

‘No.'

‘I'm not protecting anyone.'

I considered my next move. ‘A long time ago, when you were just a kid, there was an incident at the flats, same building as yours. There was a young couple living a few floors down from you, and they were junkies. One night they overdosed and they both died.'

He looked up, slightly bewildered. ‘So?'

‘I wondered if Adut ever told you about that.'

His puzzlement was clearly not an act. ‘Adut? No, why would he?'

‘You sure he never mentioned it?'

‘What's this shit you're on about, huh? Junkies dying years ago — why would he care? Why would
I
? I've got enough problems to worry about.'

‘Yes. Well. You were only about eight at the time, but gossip gets around. I thought you might have heard about it.'

‘Can I go now?'

‘Because there were lots of rumours at the time. People said there was money in the flat — drug money.'

‘So of course you think me and Adut took it. If I was eight then he was ten; we were probably watching
The Simpsons
or some shit.'

‘Of course you didn't take it.' This was not going well.

‘I'm missing a science test for this garbage.'

‘Just one last thing, Mabor. What is Funsail?'

‘What?' He looked at me for a moment, then he closed his eyes and sighed. ‘You don't know what you're talking about.' I watched him stand and head for the door. Before leaving, he turned to me. ‘Stay out of things you don't understand.'

I don't understand?
The nerve of him, the little juvenile delinquent. I understood all too well. I considered the events of the morning. I considered the book. The gangster type in the coffee shop. Then there was also the exchange of a bag, probably belonging to Adut, passed through the window of a four-wheel drive in the middle of the night. Clearly, it was time to swallow my pride and go see Phuong. Time to tell her everything I had heard. She could refer me to one of the detectives working on Adut Chol's murder. If that went well, maybe I could even show her the book, explain my reasons for taking it — after all, was it even a crime if the owner was himself a criminal? No, I could not tell her about the book. Never.

I pulled out my phone. There was a text from Boss, asking where the hell I was. I replied that he should calm down, and that I had been doing a home visit. Then I took a deep breath and rang the Footscray police station. Eventually, someone picked up. I said, ‘Phuong Nguyen, please.'

‘She got transferred. St Kilda Road.'

I hung up and checked my watch. Boss wouldn't miss me for another hour or so. It was time for a visit to the St Kilda Road police complex.

6

THE DESK
sergeant was short, with a wrinkled-up face, grey hair in a basin cut. He was old-school — not the kind of man who might, say, photograph his food. I signed in and he issued me a visitor's pass. I was a little surprised that I was not required to reveal the contents of my handbag or walk through a metal detector. All that stood between me and about three hundred cops upstairs was a swinging metal gate, which opens when swiped with a security pass. Maybe they thought that, with so many cops around, no one would dare vault the gate and rampage around the building.

Bowl-cut phoned upstairs while I hung around the foyer, studying the cop miscellany in a trophy cabinet. After a while, I sat on a bench and read a copy of yesterday's
Herald Sun
. According to the weather forecast, it was rain and wind for Melbourne, with more snow expected on the mountains. Lake Mountain had opened its toboggan trails. Having scant feeling for snow, I turned to the celebrity news under the headline:
EYE ON THE GLITERATI
. My eye was drawn to a photo of a man and woman, arms around each other, both looking at a tall man with a moustache.

… Prominent Perth socialite Clayton Brodtmann and his wife, Crystal, with South African mining tycoon Merritt Van Zyl appreciating the champagne at last night's opening of the new Asian fusion restaurant at Crown, The Crouching Tiger …

Mr Van Zyl was an odd fellow, judging from his outlandish, striped jacket and trilby. The moustache was circa 1970s Australian cricket team.

I didn't like the choice of name for the restaurant —
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
was in my list of top-five favourite movies; the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy, of course, took up the top three. I looked at Bowl-cut, he was staring at his computer screen. Just as I was considering leaving and trying my luck tomorrow, the security gate opened and she came strolling into the foyer. She wore a white shirt and navy slacks, and was kitted with her spray, cuffs, and revolver. I had to admit I was nervous to see her after all this time. She smiled and extended her hand. I nearly guffawed. Did she really expect us to shake hands?

‘Chào bà,' I said. ‘Chúc mừng năm mới.'

She blinked; a crinkle appeared in the serene forehead. ‘It's July.'

‘Is it? Dodgy bloody calendar.'

She snorted and dropped the cool act. ‘Happy New Year to you, too,' she said, laughing. Not the gasping, desk-thumping, purple-faced fit of laughter my bad Vietnamese used to bring forth. Instead Phuong looked like she always did, like she lived on a diet of macrobiotic organic roughage and jogged ten kilometres a day. A complexion so radiant it made me physically ill.

‘Coffee?' Phuong nodded towards the café across the road.

My headache tablets were wearing off; I was hungover, and buzzing, and lethargic all at the same time. There was a ringing in my ears and an odd tingling in my hands. More coffee would be ideal.

The café was the size of a walk-in wardrobe, with little kid tables and stools. Phuong ordered lattes and the guy flicked the switch on a coffee grinder. In the tiny space we waited, side-by-side, listening to the grinding. Probably the thing to do was to make some observation of the weather or the footy or the price of microdermabrasion these days, but my small talk was backed up like a dodgy sewerage system.

Phuong finally went with ‘How's work?'

‘Ah,' I closed my eyes — it felt nice, I was pretty tired. ‘Okay.'

At last the guy put two glasses on the counter. I fished in my bag, but Phuong shelled out. ‘We're taking these upstairs,' she said. ‘I'll bring the glasses down later.'

‘No worries, take your time.' The guy practically curtsied at her.

We went up in the lift, and I followed Phuong through a warren of partitioned workspaces to her cubicle. She patted the spare seat and I lowered my bottom onto it. By now, my vision was speckled, and either the air-conditioning was about to explode or I had developed tinnitus. ‘Nice office, at least you get a window.'

‘Building's already obsolete. We're moving to a mega cop-shop in the Docklands. So I'm told.'

‘Why'd you transfer from Footscray?' I asked.

‘Sat the test.' Phuong flashed her inscrutable smile. ‘I'm with homicide.'

I hadn't seen it coming. Phuong, moving on. Moving up.

She picked up her pen, all business. ‘So how can I help you?'

‘Two years ago. Footscray. The Station Hotel.'

Phuong started to write, but stopped and looked at me. ‘Stella, don't do this. Now is not the time —'

‘Oh, yes. Now is. Very much.' I scooted my chair closer and lowered my voice. ‘You sat there judging me like some B-grade celebrity on —'

‘I really don't think —'

‘I was simply trying to make a point about Australian men.'

Phuong mimicked me. ‘It's culturally ingrained. Australian men think it's funny. Being a bastard.'

‘Yes!' I hissed. ‘But you took me completely out of context.'

‘What was the context? Your abusive relationship?'

‘No. I was speaking generally. But you go, “I don't think I can listen to this again.” And I go, “What do you mean
this
?” And you go, “Endless complaining.”' My face felt warm.

‘Oh, I remember,' Phuong hissed back at me, pink spreading across her cheeks. ‘Because you started going, “But Phuong, he's an arsehole. He laughs at me.” So, you know.
Touché
.'

‘But you got all moral about it.' Now I mimicked her. ‘“It's wrong, he's married.”'

‘God, I do not
believe
you. You think I was moralising? I was worried about you. What was I supposed to do?'

‘You were my friend. You're supposed to validate the shit out of me. Instead of doing this one-woman intervention thing.'

‘You were being emotionally abused. You said as much.'

‘No. You objected because it was an affair. Because it was for sex. Jesus, the entire world does it. And you go all, “I can't pretend to tolerate it this time.” And you go, “It's not just a bad relationship. He's not simply self-centred.”'

Phuong sniffed, and squared off the papers on her desk.

‘And you never said Jacob's name. What was he, Voldemort?'

‘It was doomed from the start,' Phuong said, not looking up.

‘Buddhists are supposed to be non-judgemental.'

Phuong leaned back in her chair, her eyes locked on mine. ‘You know, there are a lot of women like you, intelligent, capable, confident, brought undone by scumbags. Men so beneath them —'

‘Okay, okay.' How could I argue with that? I gave her an apologetic look, hoping I didn't have to give her a verbal one.