The Big Ask (11 page)

‘Did you say Darrell or Darren?'

‘Darren,' said Farrell. ‘Bob Stuhl's got him familiarising himself with company operations down here.'

‘Hey, Darren,' I called.

He sauntered over, answering to his name. As he closed the twenty paces between us, my pulse soared. Play it cool, Murray, I told myself.

Darren Stuhl's skin was pasty and razor-scraped. By the look of it, he was hungover and not long out of bed. He glanced at me without a glimmer of recognition. ‘Yes, what is it?' he demanded, his tone peremptory, managerial. He slid back his plush cashmere cuff and looked at his watch. He was an important man with important things to do.

‘Forgotten me already?' I said.

He peered at my face for a couple of seconds, then shrugged.

‘The Metro,' I reminded him. ‘Friday night.' For all my efforts at cool, the words had a squeezed, slightly hysterical tone.

A memory began to take shape somewhere in Darren's recesses. His eyes flicked to Farrell, then back to me. He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘So what?'

‘Two grand's worth of dentistry, that's what,' I blurted. ‘You knocked out my front teeth, you arrogant prick. And now I know who you are, I know where to send the bill.'

He gave a contemptuous snort. He had better things to do with his time, it said, than stand in a car park listening to the pathetic bleating of some wild-eyed loser. ‘Your teeth look okay to me, pal,' he said. ‘It's your head needs fixing.'

As he turned away, I felt a flush of humiliation. ‘Before you go,' I said, putting my hand on his sleeve, ‘I think you owe me an apology.'

He stared down at my hand like it was freshly extruded from a dog's rear end. It occurred to me that his overcoat was worth more than all the teeth in my mouth. When he tried to jerk his arm away, I grabbed a handful of the fabric. ‘Say you're sorry, Darren.'

‘Get rid of this idiot, Frank,' he ordered.

Farrell stood blank-faced, immobile as a statue.

Darren put the palm of his free hand on my chest and shoved. Not a smart move. I saw red. I saw purple. I saw a seething mass of ugly vengeful images that erupted up out of my guts and blew the top right off my fragile self-control. Lashing out, I smacked him across the chops. He reeled back, even more astonished than I was. Then he took a swing.

This time, I was ready. I dodged, grabbed his lapels and sent him sprawling onto the ground. I stared down at him, reckless with rage. If this jerk thought he could assault me with impunity, just because Daddy was worth a couple of hundred million dollars, he had seriously underestimated the mettle of Murray Theodore Whelan.

‘C'mon,' I urged, beckoning him to his feet. ‘Have a go, you mug.'

The half-dozen men from the depot rushed forward and formed a circle of spectators. The Marquess of Queensberry was not among them.

Darren got to his feet, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. He peeled off his overcoat and tossed it to one of the onlookers, then squared off and shaped up. A brawler with an audience, relishing it. Not without reason. Hungover or not, he was fifteen years faster and ten kilos fitter. Rolling his shoulders beneath his fashionably baggy olive-green suit, he tilted his chin upwards, urging me on. I was seriously outclassed, over my head in very deep shit.

He led with his bathroom-proven right hook, aiming for my face. I dropped my shoulder and ran at him, feeling the blow land on my ear as I slammed into his chest. If he thought I was going to box him, he'd mistaken me for a man who knew what he was doing. Get in close, I thought desperately. Compensate for my lack of skill by kneeing him in the knackers.

We scrabbled and scuffled across the wet tarmac. I tried to topple him over, wanting nothing so much as to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. His breath was in my face, his eyes wild and savage. The guy was cut-snake mad, completely off his fucking tree. A forearm jolt to the throat sent me reeling backwards. Then I was on the ground.

A pair of shoes filled my field of vision. Black leather brogues, wing-tipped, buffed to a shine, spattered with mud and patterned with little punched holes. A swift kick to the stomach drove the wind out of me and flooded my eyes with spinning red atoms. My left arm shot up to shield my face. The taste of bile filled my mouth, mingling with shame and anger and confusion.

Darren took a backward step, taking his time now, enjoying the moment. He unbuttoned his jacket and cocked his leg for the
coup de grâce
. In the pit of his arm, he was wearing a leather holster, the butt of a gun clearly visible. The kick came towards me. I shut my eyes.

Nothing happened. I took a peek and saw that Frank Farrell was dragging Darren backwards, pinning his arms to his side, wrestling him under control. ‘Enough,' he was saying. ‘Easy, easy.'

As fast as I could, I clambered to my feet. Darren was still trying to get at me, struggling against Farrell's restraint. We glowered at each other, chests heaving. But the fisticuffs were finished and we both knew it.

‘Go,' Farrell ordered me. ‘Just go.'

Go? It was all I could do not to turn tail and run. But the tattered remnants of my pride could face no further humiliation. ‘Come near me again, you useless piece of shit,' I panted, my legs as firm as instant noodles. ‘You won't know what fucking-well hit you.'

Darren shrugged off Farrell's grip. ‘Any time,' he sneered. ‘Any time.'

‘Break it up, you two,' growled Farrell. ‘This isn't the time or the place.'

Brushing the mud from my sleeves with as much dignity as I could muster, I turned on my heels and strode away. I had no idea where I was going.

Ahead of me, the wholesale produce market was a cavernous, floodlit hive of activity. I let it swallow me. It was either that or fall twitching to the ground, a gibbering wreck.

Mountains of oranges reared up before me. Ramparts of onions. Avenues of avocadoes and corridors of celery. Mesh sacks bulged with butternut pumpkins and waxed cartons glistened with iced broccoli. Red peppers and purple eggplants. Uncountable heads of cauliflower and crate-loads of cabbages. And everywhere the frenetic lurch of forklifts, the squeal of brakes, the flash of banknotes peeled from tightrolled wads by men in leather aprons.

I went deeper and deeper into the vast, high-roofed building. Above the stalls hung the names of the vendors. A lot were Italian and Greek but there were Asian names, too, Vietnamese and Chinese, above bundles of bok choy and white radishes the size of torpedoes.

Adrenalin was pounding in my ears, my abdomen ached and a lump was rising at my hairline. Fuck, what a psycho. And Frank Farrell, what was that all about? For a lowly union head-kicker, he seemed pretty familiar with the son of one of the biggest plutocrats in the country.

This is insane, I thought. Trying to kill time, I'd nearly got myself killed instead. And now I was wandering aimlessly through a gigantic shed full of tubers and foliage, dodging trolleys and forklifts, wondering what the fuck had possessed me to come here. My hands, I realised, were trembling. Where was Red at this moment, I wondered? How was he passing the night? Was he alone? Safe? What had impelled him to strike out into the big, bad city?

Donny and his mates were nowhere to be seen. The place was so big, so busy, they could easily not notice that I was here. I felt a sense of relief at that fact. I just wanted to call a cab and go home. If I wasn't at the airport by seven o'clock, they'd sell my ticket to somebody else. I calculated the travel times. Half an hour back to Fitzroy, same again to shower, shave and pack. Forty-five minutes to the airport. A total of two hours, say. It had just gone four, giving me nearly an hour up my sleeve.

I arrived at the market cafe, a steaming, glass-walled hubbub of muffled conversations and toasted sandwiches. I went in, looking for a payphone, didn't find one. Sleep was now off the agenda. Caffeine and nicotine were the order of the day. I bought a cup of cardboard coffee, sat down at a battle-scarred formica table and sucked hungrily on a cigarette. My son, I said to myself, your father is a fool.

The coffee was crap, but it was warm and wet. Halfway through it, Frank Farrell came through the door. He sat down and laid his cell-phone on the table between us. Big man, I thought, flashing his big, expensive status symbol. ‘You okay?' he said.

I crushed my stub in the overflowing tinfoil ashtray. ‘Never better.'

‘Pompous prick, aren't you?'

I had to agree with him. ‘Okay, so I didn't exactly cover myself in glory. But a man can forget his manners when he runs into the total stranger who attacked him in a nightclub and rammed his head down a toilet.'

‘Darren did that?'

‘Hilarious, eh?' I peeled back my top lip and tapped my teeth with the crooked knuckle of my forefinger. ‘Twentythree hundred bucks.'

He gave a low whistle. Whether this was in disgust at Darren's behaviour or amazement at the high cost of dentistry was not immediately apparent. ‘Send me the bill,' he said. ‘I'll make sure Bob pays it. And something in the way of compensation, too, if you'd care to put a figure on it.'

‘Sounds like you've done this sort of thing before,' I said. ‘I've heard the Haulers are snug with Stuhl Holdings but I didn't realise you also babysit the owner's children.'

Farrell gave a resigned shrug. ‘I prefer to call it managing the management.' He lit a Marlboro. I could see him up there on the horse, squinting into the distance, riding herd on the herd. ‘There's background here,' he said.

‘And I suppose you want to share it with me?' I drew back my cuff and looked at my watch. 4.15.

Farrell rested his elbows on the table and leaned into his cigarette, considering where to begin. Then he started. ‘Bob Stuhl has two sons, right. Half-brothers. Adrian's the child of his first marriage. High achiever. MBA, champion rower, the works. The apple of his father's eye, the very nectarine. Being groomed as future chief executive, seat on the board at twenty-seven.'

‘Until he had an accident,' I said. ‘Read about it. Dived into the shallow end of a swimming pool.'

‘That's the public version,' said Farrell. ‘Real story's a bit more interesting. Involves your friend Darren.'

‘Surprise, surprise,' I said.

‘Darren's ten years younger than Adrian. Never what you might call foreman material. Piss-poor academic record, no good at sport. Generally failed to meet his father's expectations.'

‘Boo-hoo,' I said. ‘Low self-esteem, so he turns into a delinquent.'

Farrell narrowed his eyes. ‘You want to hear this or not?'

I yawned. ‘Wake me up when it gets interesting.'

Farrell waited until the silence got uncomfortable, then started back in. ‘The accident was about six years ago. Darren's in his last year of school. He's supposed to be doing his homework, but he's bored. Bob had him at one of those places where they don't mind if you're dumb as dogshit, long as the cheques keep coming. Anyway, Darren decides to climb out his bedroom window onto the roof. This is the Stuhl family compound in Toorak, a thirty-room French chateau.'

‘I see Bob more as the Graceland type.'

‘You got it,' said Farrell. ‘This is more the wife's speed. The number two, Darren's mother. Social climber. Anyway, it's a hot summer night and Adrian's down below, taking a dip in the French provincial swimming pool. Darren's up on the roof, arsing around. Accidentally dislodges a sheet of slate. Eighth of an inch thick, edge like a blunt machete. It shoots down the incline, frisbees off the guttering and lobotomises big brother. Cost Bob a hospital wing to bury the truth. Also cost him fifty million when the market expressed its sympathy by shaving 10 per cent off the Stuhl Holdings share price on account of succession uncertainties.'

Good story. As stories went. ‘Lifestyles of the rich and famous,' I said. ‘Your point being? I should consider myself lucky that Darren only cost me my front teeth?'

Farrell tapped the edge of the ashtray with his cigarette. It didn't have any ash on it.

‘My point being that Bob lost his heir apparent,' he said impatiently. ‘Suddenly dipstick Darren was the great white hope, promoted into his brother's shoes. First Bob shipped him off to America so he could get himself some sort of ticket in business administration. Now he's back with a vengeance, learning the family racket from the ground up. Running around making a nuisance of himself at every Stuhl depot and office from here to the Black Stump. Not only isn't he up to it, he's a chip off the old block. Thinks the way to get things done is to be the meanest dog in the yard.'

The adrenalin had ebbed away and I was suddenly very, very tired. ‘Okay, I understand your problem,' I said. ‘Bob employs, what, nearly a thousand of your members. And Darren represents what you might call an occupational hazard. So you keep a close eye on him. You drag him away when he's about to give some poor prick a kicking. You manage the management. I can sympathise. But I'm not going to roll over, help poor benighted Bob with his dynastic succession problems. Now that I know who Darren is, I'm going to lay a complaint of aggravated assault, have him charged, brought before a magistrate.'

Farrell's mobile phone chirped. He pushed a button and hoisted the black plastic brick to his ear. ‘Yeah?' He listened briefly, frowned, then turned it off and laid it back on the table, its stubby antenna quivering. I considered asking him if I could use it to call a cab. But I was already obliged to him for saving me from a kicking and wasn't inclined to go begging petty favours.

‘You'd be well within your rights,' he told me, straight back onto the topic of Darren Stuhl. ‘But why take him to court, deal with all that shit, when a private settlement can be reached, put some dollars in your pocket?'

‘Because it's not just a private matter,' I said. ‘The guy's a public menace.'