Something Fishy (16 page)

Tony stepped forward into the light. He looked like a washed-up gorilla, the missing link between man and doormat. He raised his foot and shook it.

‘You want a hygienic camp?' he said. ‘Try showing a little trust.'

A chain rattled. It was connected to his ankle, running across the ground to the screened tent. The card player gave a derisory snort and shuffled the cards.

‘And have you take off again? Not on your nellie.'

‘Why would I take off now?' Tony whined. ‘Soon as he arrives, we do the business, I'm out of here.'

‘Just doing my job, pal. You'll get unlocked when he gets here, not before. You know the drill.'

Tony grunted, then shuffled into the tent, dragging the chain after him. ‘Far as I'm concerned, it won't be a minute too soon,' he said, plonking himself down and curling his fist around a can.

Things were getting weirder by the second.

Tony was obviously a prisoner, yet his demeanour suggested that to some degree he accepted the situation. Did Rita have a hand in this? Was some sort of rough justice being dispensed here? It was one thing to dob her philandering husband in to the authorities, quite another to chain him up in the Otway Forest wearing only last week's underpants. Who was the card player? Was he Rodney Syce or not? And what was that fucking terrible smell?

Every fibre of my being was telling me to get the hell out of there, follow the creek bed downhill, find a road, summon the cavalry. Let the coppers sort it out.

But I couldn't leave yet, not without getting a clearer view of the card player's face, enough to satisfy me on the Syce front. Heart pounding, I inched into the gap between the boat-trailer and the shed. The inky shadow of the tarpaulin canopy ran right to the edge of the clearing, as close as I could creep without giving myself away. But to get a well-lit view of the man's face, I needed a bit of altitude and a better angle. Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, I put my right foot, the good one, on the mudguard of the boat-trailer. Easing down on the springs, I hoisted myself upright. Left leg jutting sideways for balance, I leaned over the boat, craning for a clearer view.

That's when I saw the mutt. It was lying on an old sack beside the screened tent, licking its balls. A short-haired mongrel of a thing, a stump with legs, some sort of kelpie-pitbull cross.

The trailer's springs squeaked beneath me. The sound couldn't have been softer. The dog pricked up its ears and raised its muzzle, did a radar sweep. I froze. The bloke at the table turned over a card, oblivious. The dog stood up. I stared at it, not daring to breathe, my mouth dry, my ears filled with the
boomf
,
boomf
,
boomf
ing of my heart.

The dog's ears quivered. It took a step forward, sniffed the air, tensed. Somewhere in its canine recesses, input was being assessed, conclusions drawn, sinews mobilised. It swung its snout in my direction and emitted a low, carnivorous growl.

‘Wassat, boy? That feral again?'

The card player swivelled in his seat, following the direction of the dog's stare. But I didn't notice his face. I wasn't looking that way. My eyes were glued to the dog. It was hurtling towards me, a fanged missile, barking savagely.

My fight-or-flight instinct took the floor. Flight had the numbers. Run, Murray, run. Now. Fast.

But I wouldn't get far, not with a dodgy ankle and set of canine canines embedded in my fleshy extremities. Nor, prudence dictated, would simply revealing my presence be a good idea. ‘Evening gents, Murray Whelan here, Member for Melbourne Upper.' For a start, I still wasn't absolutely sure if the solitaire-shuffler was Rodney Syce. I was pretty sure, however, that he was engaged in some sort of criminal activity and he was unlikely to be well disposed to a stranger blundering into his operation. A lost and vulnerable stranger.

And as for Tony Melina, although he wasn't hostile, not as far as I knew, he was in the unreliable category until proven otherwise. Besides which, he was chained to a frigging tree.

Instinctively, even as these thoughts were racing through my mind, I stepped into the dinghy and dropped to a crouch. My hands swept the floor, searching for something with which to defend myself, should the situation so require. Furious barking rent the air. Creatures scarpered in the canopy. But the dog came no closer. It snapped to a halt at the end of a rope tether, capering and baying, filling the night with its clamour.

‘Shuddup, you,' snapped the card player. ‘Quiet.'

The dog reluctantly obeyed, firing off a final volley of yaps. But it continued to bristle, snout pointed my way, trembling eagerly. I sank lower on my haunches, eyes level with the edge of the boat, hand closing around a light metal object. The shaft of an oar, I guessed. A serviceable implement, if paddle came to whack.

The card player emerged from the screen shelter and stood beside the dog, staring out of his pool of light directly into the darkness in which I was immersed. The lantern behind him formed a nimbus around his head and threw his features into shadow. He was holding a shotgun.

That did it for me. I no longer needed a full-face close-up. Forget the Cecil Beaton portrait, the whole murky ball of wax spoke for itself. If the man with the gun wasn't Rodney Syce, I'd go down on the Premier in front of the entire parliamentary press gallery.

He stared long and hard, head tilted to one side, listening. My heart was pounding louder than the Burundi National Drum Ensemble. My mouth was so dry that the skin was making crackling noises. I had ceased entirely to breathe.

From somewhere behind me came the faint drone of an approaching motor.

Syce relaxed, reached down and ruffled the nape of the dog's neck. ‘Good boy,' he said. Then, over his shoulder to Tony, who was hobbling from the annexe, dragging his chain behind him. ‘Here he comes now.'

The dog yapped, its muzzle still pointed directly at me. ‘Settle,' Syce ordered. The mutt gave a disappointed growl, padded back to its bed and lay down.

Syce moved out of my frame of vision for a couple of seconds, then reappeared minus the shotgun. He busied himself with undoing the shackle at Tony Melina's ankle. ‘Behave yourself and you'll be out of here tonight,' he said.

‘Yeah, yeah,' said Tony impatiently. ‘I know the score.'

I allowed myself to inhale. I needed to get out of there, fast and quiet. I let go of the oar, took hold of the rim of the dinghy and tensed, ready to vault to the ground beside the ab-processing shed. But the advancing vehicle was already labouring up the slope from the creek bed, headlights angled high into the treetops. Up the bank it came,
vroom
,
vroom
, a blaze of light preceding it. Light that began to sweep across the tarpaulin above my head.

I dropped flat, cheek pressed to the dinghy's aluminium hull. Fetid bilgewater rose in my nostrils. The vehicle came around the boat, very close, and pulled up. The engine cut out, but the lights stayed on, spilling their glow to the very edge of my hiding place. A door creaked open, then snicked shut. Footsteps crunched.

‘Tony,' hailed a man's voice. ‘Mate.'

‘Nice to see you, Jake,' replied Tony, his tone heavy with sarcasm. ‘Good of you to pay us a visit. Busy night at Gusto, I imagine.'

Jake Martyn. It couldn't be anyone else.

This did not compute. Nothing computed. My mental mainframe could not do the arithmetic.

‘Busy enough,' came the reply. Relaxed. Hail-fellow. ‘So what's the problem? Something in the paperwork you didn't understand?'

I managed to roll onto my back. Shadows flickered across the tarpaulin suspended above the boat. An unobserved exit was now out of the question. The voices were no more than ten paces away.

A million questions swarmed through my mind, not many of them finding answers. Jake Martyn and Tony Melina belonged in the same frame, that much I could grasp. Two men in the restaurant business. Men in the process of conducting a business deal of some sort. A dirty money deal, poached abalone in the picture. Some degree of duress involved, hence Tony's captivity. This had nothing to do with Rita. And the whole tall-timbers hideout set-up made sense in terms of Rodney Syce, wanted fugitive and experienced bushman. But what was the connection between Jake Martyn and Rodney Syce?

‘What's the problem?' echoed Tony Melina, his tone incredulous, angry. ‘I've been chained to a fucken tree, you ask me what's the problem?'

‘Chained to a tree?' Martyn mirrored Tony's incredulity, but with a larding of mock outrage. ‘I had no idea. Is this true, Mick?'

Mick clearly meant Syce. An alias was only to be expected. Tony, evidently, didn't know the true identity of his jailer. Or he was in on the act.

‘Not to mention the bloody awful stink,' Tony went on. ‘It seeps into your pores.'

Martyn laughed. ‘That's the sweet smell of money, mate. Mick's little abalone kitchen might not be Health Department approved, but we'd both be poorer without it.'

‘You said I'd only be stuck here for a couple of days,' whined Tony. ‘It's been ten, for Chrissake. What the fuck am I going to tell the missus, the staff.'

‘It's been far too long, mate, I agree,' soothed Martyn. ‘And you've been very patient. I appreciate it, I really do. And so would Phil, I'm sure, if he knew how uncomfortable you've been. But delays are inevitable at this time of the year, any kind of international transaction. Banks closed for the holidays, different time-zones, it's been frustrating for all of us. But I sent up the papers the minute they arrived, just like I promised. All you had to do was sign them, have Mick bring them back. If you'd done that, you'd be on your way right now. Instead, you send him to fetch me, busiest night of the year, insist on seeing me in person before you sign. And here I am. So, can we get on with it?'

I tensed my stomach muscles and raised my torso until I could just see over the bows of the boat. Jake Martyn—it was definitely him—had a briefcase in one hand. His other hand was on Tony Melina's hairy shoulder, leading him towards the screened tent with its table and hissing Primus lantern.

That wasn't the only thing I saw. Rodney Syce was walking directly towards me. I dropped back and felt the bows of the boat dip as he lowered his backside onto the trailer hitch. He grunted as he dropped into place and the springs of the trailer squeaked beneath his weight. My bowels turned to liquid. I clenched my buttocks, scarcely daring to breathe.

‘I don't fucken believe this,' Tony Melina was saying. ‘You act like it's perfectly normal to do business like this. Grab me, get me pissed. Keep me that way for days on end, pouring grog down my throat every time I wake up. Drag me up here, wherever the fuck this is, tie me to a tree like a dog, then expect me to sign on the dotted line, go home like nothing unusual's happened. This is the deal from hell, Jakey boy. I might as well kiss my money goodbye, right?'

Syce made a low, irritated noise, then stood up, restless. His footsteps moved away, into the bush.

‘Not at all, Tony,' Martyn soothed. ‘It's going to be exactly like we agreed in the beginning. We'll be partners in the restaurant, you and me. Fifty-fifty. Straight down the middle. I'll run things, you'll be the silent partner. Very silent. As long as you keep your mouth shut, things will be sweet. You'll get your fair whack of the profits. Believe me.'

‘Sure,' said Tony bitterly. ‘If there's any profits to share. Which there won't be, of course. Why don't you admit this whole thing's been a scam from the word go.'

‘Listen, mate. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start, I'll admit. But there'll be plenty for everybody. You keep your side of the deal, I'll keep mine. It's a matter of trust. And, frankly, you've been the weak link in that department, you've got to admit. You were eager enough to come into the business when I first proposed it, you'll recall. Keen to play with the big boys. It was even you who first suggested we go the offshore loan route, remember?'

I could hear twigs snapping and the clump of Syce's footfalls as he stalked the perimeter of the camp. The hull was hard against my back, my mobile phone jammed against my kidneys. I hoped to Christ it was still out of range. The last thing I needed right then was an unexpected call, some cold-canvasser ringing to discuss my insurance needs at ten past eleven on New Year's Eve. Shifting position, I propped on my elbow, casting about with my free hand, taking blind inventory. Two lightweight metal oars, a tangle of fishing line, a life-jacket. Nothing remotely useful.

‘And if you hadn't tried to back out at the last minute, upset the applecart, it wouldn't have been necessary to remind you of your obligations,' Martyn was saying. ‘So stop being such a cry-baby, Tony. Sign the fucking papers, join the firm. Then Mick can see you out of here and I can get back to my guests.'

I hazarded a peep. Tony and Jake Martyn were facing each other across the table in the screened tent, the briefcase open between them. Martyn was reaching in, removing a sheaf of documents. The dog was reclining on its sacking bed, back to doing what dogs do because they can.

As far as I was concerned, Tony Melina and Jake Martyn could do the same. And the sooner the better. My interest was Rodney Syce. And if I'd understood what I'd just heard, as soon as Martyn and Melina finished transacting their business, Syce was going to escort Tony elsewhere. If I was patient and kept my head down, all three of them would soon be gone. This offered a much more satisfactory prospect than attempting to sneak past Syce, who was still lurking out there somewhere in the mulga.