The Story of Danny Dunn (52 page)

Danny forced a small chuckle. ‘Well, yeah, I suppose so, Nick. It's just that the man works . . . er, worked for me as a part-time gardener.
I want to see that the poor old bugger is looked after, that's all.'

The civil servant's tone softened noticeably. ‘Heart on your sleeve again, eh, Danny? When are you going to learn that the poor will always be among us? You can't have the Jew boy earning all the dough while you go in to bat for the little people.'

Danny winced. ‘Is there something you're not telling me, Nick?' he asked, hoping he sounded sufficiently ingenuous.

‘No, son. We were just a tad concerned when a lawyer of your reputation bobbed up on the inquest list, that's all.'

‘Are you sure? I sense you're worried about something.' Danny didn't want to appear too naïve or Nick Lawless would smell a rat. He was arrogant but no fool.

‘No, nothing, mate,' Lawless answered with a chuckle, far too old a hand to be wrong-footed. ‘Heffron's under a bit of pressure, taking over so unexpectedly after Cahill died. He still feels he's on probation. The Minister for Housing thinks he should have been the chosen one, so he wants a show of strength over this . . . er, boarding-house fire. When we saw Nifty Dunn on the list . . . well, there's one or two people got a little antsy. We don't want a shit fight just at the moment.' Another chuckle followed. ‘Mate, what can I say? Usual big boys' games.' He paused. ‘Righto then, if you're just looking after this old bloke, I guess that's okay.'

Danny realised it was all bullshit, but it was quality bullshit and he would have expected nothing less from the senior civil servant. ‘Well, as a matter of fact I'm pretty busy at the moment, Nick. I thought it would be a fairly open-and-shut case, all over in a day or two. I'd just like to see that the old bloke gets a fair suck of the sav.'

‘Thanks, Danny. Leave it to me; I'll pass that on. The coroner, old Harry Prout, is on the verge of retirement. I'm sure he doesn't want the newspapers all over this one. Nor does my boss, ha ha.'

‘No, I don't suppose that ever serves a useful purpose,' Danny replied, thinking how useful a newspaper exposé might be in the case, and that perhaps he should give someone a discreet call. ‘Nice to talk with you, Nick.'

Danny put down the phone. He remembered Half Dunn's ‘every dog has his day' advice.
You'll keep, Lawless
, he thought.

Danny walked through to Franz's office. ‘Just had Lawless from the attorney-general's office on the phone. Wanted to know why I was on the inquest list.'

‘Got the wind up?'

‘Hopefully I managed to reassure him it was simply good old Danny doing another pro bono.'

‘Not the sort of guy you'd invite to your son's bar mitzvah,' Franz remarked.

‘Oh, you've noticed?'

‘Bastard doesn't do a whole lot to hide his anti-Semitism.'

‘Franz, I suspect even if I can get the coroner to refer it to the attorney-general for trial, Riley will have his arse well and truly covered. We need to know more about him: his social position, standing in the community, friends in high places, associates, family – that sort of thing. Our man from Vaucluse, Bryan Penman, just might be useful. Do you think you could approach him? It's not appropriate for me to do it.'

‘Why? Because you got him off a murder rap? You think you'd be putting him in an awkward position?'

‘Yeah, kind of. Puts him under an obligation.'

‘Shouldn't be a problem. I'll talk to my mum and dad.'

‘You can be sure if things get too hot, Riley will have someone lined up to take the rap. His sort always does. Besides, it's standard practice.'

Franz gave him a straight look. ‘Danny, I know how badly you want Riley, how long you've waited to nail him, but don't be blinded by the need for revenge.'

‘What do you mean by that?' Danny asked, a little defensively.

‘Treat it like any other case. Remember Old Sharp's advice – there's many a slip between mug and lip, so don't be the mug.'

‘Hey, mate, that's a bit close to the bone! You think I could be emotionally blinded? Jesus! First Helen, now you!'

‘Two very sensible people making the same observation, it seems,' Franz said coolly. ‘Treat it the same as any other case.'

‘But it isn't the fucking same! Eight people are dead. Eight people have effectively been murdered!'

‘See what I mean? You're on your white charger and tilting at windmills. You haven't proved that anyone has been murdered. I may only be a conveyancing solicitor, but as I understand it, this is an inquest into the cause of an accident, not a murder trial. Right now Nick Lawless is talking to somebody who's talking to somebody who'll talk to Riley's mob and tell them Nifty Dunn is representing Bullnose at the inquest. I don't for one second believe you allayed his suspicions.' Franz paused. ‘No, that's not quite fair. You probably did. But Lawless is as cunning as a shithouse rat. Besides, you're a pretty high-profile lawyer. He'll pass the word around as a matter of routine, and by this afternoon Riley will have his lawyers briefing the best available barrister in town.'

Danny was silent, drumming his fingers on Franz's desk, thinking, then finally he said, ‘Okay, maybe you're right. What are you suggesting?'

‘I'm suggesting I don't contact Bryan Penman. Nobody gossips like the very rich. Initially Riley mustn't be seen to be your target. You first have to prove criminal neglect: that the fire was an accident waiting to happen, that the meter board and the wiring were faulty and that the owners were aware of this and neglected to do anything about it. Even if you're successful, that doesn't necessarily get you to Riley. They'll have a scapegoat – the manager probably.'

‘Lenny Green, yeah, I'd anticipated that. My job will be to establish a direct and admissible link between the cause of the fire and Riley.'

‘I don't like your chances, Danny,' Franz responded.

Danny ignored this. ‘We need to get Green to testify that he informed Riley of the danger and that Riley ignored his advice.'

‘If a conversation such as that ever took place,' Franz said, sceptical.

‘It took place, or it will have,' Danny said, almost as a throwaway line. ‘Green is definitely the key. They'll persuade him that the inquest will be a whitewash and the most he'll face is a rap on the knuckles.'

‘And your job is to persuade him otherwise?'

‘Well, not exactly
my
job, someone else's. I've called Bumper Barnett.'

‘The hastily-retired-on-a-full-pension Kings Cross detective sergeant?'

‘The same. He comes recommended by Perc Galea.'

‘But if you can't talk to Bryan Penman, how can you approach Galea for help? He's one of your clients, too.'

‘Galea is different. The criminal world runs on dishing dirt.'

‘And high society doesn't?' Franz exclaimed, surprised. ‘It'd be good if Lenny Green has a criminal background, would it not?'

‘Probably better if he doesn't. We don't want the court automatically regarding him as a mendacious ex-crim. Bumper will, I hope, put the fear of God into him.' Danny reached over and lifted the gold Parker pen from its marble and bronze snout. Franz referred to the pen as the Bar Mitzvah Boy's Burden, claiming he'd received twenty-three identical pens on the day he turned thirteen. Danny tossed it from one hand to the other, then said carefully, ‘Mate, I'd be really grateful if you acted as my sounding board in this. Perhaps even sit in court with me, act as my instructing solicitor. You and Helen might be right – I want him too much. Always dangerous with my . . . er, personality.'

‘Sure. The debating team together again, eh?'

Two days later Bumper Barnett attended a briefing with Danny and Franz in the spare office they referred to as the boardroom. He reported what he'd managed to find out about Lenny Green, and then they settled down to discuss tactics.

Danny was a big man himself, over six foot, but next to Barnett he appeared merely average. The ex-policeman was close to six foot nine, and his shoulders seemed almost half that measure. He carried a beer gut that would have put Half Dunn to shame when was in his prime. This abdominal bulwark, rotund and rock hard, was the source of his nickname and served as a formidable weapon. His huge stomach took the place of a police truncheon or a pair of fists. He would literally ‘bump' crims into submission, working them into the corner of a room where he'd repeatedly bump them until they confessed or collapsed. An added advantage was that they never had a mark on them to show the severe beating they'd received.
‘I swear I never laid a hand on him, Your Honour.'

In his day, Bumper Barnett couldn't be called an honest cop, but then he couldn't be called a corrupt one either. He'd acted as bagman in the Cross and Darlinghurst area, personally delivering the weekly take from the brothels, sly-grog operators, SP bookmakers and gambling joints to the safe in the premier's office, to which only he and the premier had the combination. In return he'd received a small stipend that the premier referred to as his weekly bonus. It was never going to make him a rich man.

He was respected by the major crims because he never used the information they gave him for any purpose other than the one he'd told them about. He kept his word and never doublecrossed them or accepted a personal bribe. He was fearless and respected no man above another; he did things his own way, accepted what he couldn't change and served the general community conscientiously, so that no honest citizen had any reason to fear him and most criminals had a great many reasons to do so if Bumper decided to come after them.

He came unstuck leaving a brothel late one Saturday night, where he'd gone to collect the bagman's share of the night's takings. A young hoon on the pavement was beating up one of the girls from the establishment. Bumper grabbed him by the shirtfront and gave him a bump that sent him careening into a parked car, breaking his shoulder and several ribs.

Unfortunately for Bumper the drunk turned out to be the assistant police commissioner's eighteen-year-old son, celebrating the end of his final-year school exams with his mates, so it proved to be a career-terminating bump. The pro, it seemed, had embraced the kid, pretending to persuade him to come inside with her, but had then neatly plucked his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and dropped it while trying to conceal it inside her bra.

Bumper Barnett was subsequently given the choice of serving out the remainder of his police career in Wilcannia, a three-pub town out west on the banks of the Darling River, or resigning quietly on a full police pension. He chose the latter and maintained the goodwill of the Kings Cross community as well as the respect of the criminal fraternity. In the process he earned twice as much as he had as a policeman, doing useful tasks such as the one Danny had now asked him to undertake.

Lenny Green, the boarding-house manager, turned out to be a recidivist, in and out of the clink since his teens. It was the usual story: Parramatta Boys Home, reform school for delinquency, mostly stealing cars, then breaking and entering, nothing big or well planned, just typical small-time criminal stuff that got a light sentence so that he was in and out of jail like a yo-yo. He'd been clean for five years and prior to taking over the boarding house had been for a short time a general factotum at a strip club in Kings Cross. ‘Like most of his kind he's not very bright,' Bumper Barnett concluded. ‘He'd probably 'fess up if he was worked on a bit.'

‘Spot on, Bumper,' Danny said. ‘Convince him that the inquest is going to take off like a rocket and he's going to be tied to the stick. Let him understand there's a very real risk that he's going to jail for a very long time.'

Bumper nodded. ‘Mr Dunn, Lenny Green is about to discover that the only way out is to tell the truth, that the truth will set him free. He'll come to understand that committing perjury will have two disastrous consequences: he'll end up getting the book thrown at him and he'll have earned my disrespect.'

‘Okay, we'll leave all that to you, Bumper. By the way, see what you can find out about Riley, and the Double Bay Syndicate, as I believe it's called. I don't want you knocking on doors or making any direct inquiries, just ear-to-the-ground stuff. Find out if Riley's involved in anything else that's got a nasty whiff to it.' He paused. ‘Righto, let's try to work out what the opposition may be planning to do at the inquest.' He turned to his partner. ‘Franz, what do you reckon?'

‘Well, the locked back door and the barred windows that prevented the eight people escaping are not going to go away. So, they'll have to try to coerce, persuade, make it worthwhile for Lenny Green to take the blame for criminal neglect. If the sentence he receives is a token rap over the knuckles, a few months in jail with a big payout waiting in the bank for him when he comes out, he may agree.'

‘With respect, Mr Landsman, he
will
agree,' Bumper said. ‘Two consequences if he doesn't: Riley will have him badly beaten up and he'll miss out on the equivalent of two years' pay. It doesn't make a lot of sense to refuse.'