ThornyDevils (36 page)

‘Don’t move and don’t talk,’ a muffled growl came from behind him. Peter could hear boots scraping on the cobblestones. The voice was gruff, as if disguised. ‘You really stuffed up,’ the man continued. ‘I gave those photos to Stella, then she leaves and you take over. A bloody pity. She knew what she was doing. You haven’t got a clue.’

Peter tried to move his mouth to speak.

‘I said don’t talk, Clancy. You useless prick.’

Peter felt his head being pressed so hard against the wall that he thought he’d either crack the bricks or crack his skull. It was Stella’s informant. It had to be.

‘You gave those photos to McCracken. You stupid bastard! Don’t you know McCracken and Donarto set up their own operation with an overseas crime boss? I thought you would have worked that out by now.’

Peter tried to give a muffled reply but he couldn’t move his mouth.

‘They wanted the O’Leary’s turf and now they have it. But for you, it’s getting personal. So pull your act together. You could be on the slab next.’

Peter attempted to turn his head.

‘Don’t turn around. I’ll be in touch.’

The hand pulled away from his neck and heavy boots ran up the laneway to the street. Peter caught a quick glimpse of a man in the shadows. Tall and dressed in dark clothing. He couldn’t improve on the description. Then the man was gone.

Peter looked down at his sodden pants and realised he would have to drive home like that or minus his pants and underwear. Peter chose the second option and prayed desperately that he wouldn’t be pulled over.

***

At work, Peter was the cause célèbre. At least for a week. He was the journalist who took gonzo to the limit. Hunter S Thompson would have been proud. Television current affair programs and newspapers wanted to interview him. Only Ilmo remained unconvinced. He described Peter’s approach to newsgathering as reckless and bordering on guerrilla tactics. Maybe Ilmo was sore that Peter had knocked him back for an exclusive interview. And a new term was coined. Guerrilla journalism. Blah, blah. Peter wasn’t interested. If he could be nominated for a Walkley Award he’d be happy. If he could get a free season ticket for every Collingwood game, even better. Free drinks at the Tote for a day. Already done, my son.

The pub moved very quickly to honour one of its most famous patrons and biggest investors. Free drinks for Peter all day. He was found legless and curled up near the jukebox singing ‘Black Night’ at four o’clock in the afternoon. Ah, the heavy price of fame. Sam had been nominated for a bravery award, which he had promptly refused. Tommy O’Leary was going to live, albeit confined to a wheelchair and in one of Her Majesty’s facilities. It could have been worse for Tommy. He might have been stuck in that same wheelchair in a nursing home stinking of urine with nothing but a bunch of old dears for company. And a sad end to the week; Babs had been buried with little fanfare or fuss. Sam had attended. Buddy Bell had been absent.

Peter tried to talk to Sam about Babs, but Sam shut him down straight away. He could see Sam was grieving in his own way, but that was how blackfellas were. Once someone had died, they were forbidden to speak of them again. They couldn’t even say their names, Peter knew that. Meanwhile, Peter heard on the grapevine that Buddy had been released from custody and had promptly disappeared into the ether. Gone.

Not to be outdone, Concheetah and Ted had thrown a costume party at the Velour Lounge. Nothing too decadent, Peter had been warned. Sam and Dave went dressed as cowboys and Peter as a rock
star. Very sedate. The other guests were far more innovative. Peter had expected a heavy element of Melbourne’s quirky, underground community to attend and he was so very right.

Concheetah’s party was a steroid-injected combination of Fellini movie, Village People video and Roman orgy. It was champagne, cocaine, feather boas and leather. Dave stood bug-eyed next to the door and Sam leaned against the wall, his hat pulled over his face. They lasted half an hour before ducking for the exit but Peter remained. He couldn’t leave. He was the special guest. Peter made a mental note: if he woke up in Concheetah’s bed then something had gone very wrong.

The night ebbed away in a boozy haze. Peter was called to the stage by Concheetah to cut a cake shaped like an erect penis. He swore he felt a pain in his groin as he sliced into it. Then he waltzed with Concheetah. Kissed unexpectedly on the mouth by Her Highness. And yes, it did still feel like being kissed by a man. Ted, dressed in lederhosen on the bar, tapped his drunken heart out to a Judy Garland song and feigned collapse at the end. After that it was all a blur. Again.

Peter woke in a bed that wasn’t his own, an enormous portrait of Concheetah gazing seductively down on him. He quickly checked under the sheets. Fully clothed. He was on a fold-out bed in the lounge.
Thank God. I like you Concheetah, but you’re a mate.
That thought still in his mind, Concheetah in full regalia was standing over him, pressing a cup of espresso into his shaky hand. Peter looked at her with a sense of wonderment.
Doesn’t Concheetah ever just want to kick back, slip off the wig and make-up and wear a T-shirt and shorts? Become Colin every now and again?
Obviously not. He sipped his coffee as his head throbbed, while Concheetah reassured him that he hadn’t done anything to disgrace himself.
Was that a wink?
He gulped his coffee, saying he had to be at the office in a hurry. All this fame was getting too much, he thought as he dashed down the stairs of Concheetah’s apartment block. He had to reel it in fast.
The liver may collapse.
He had always longed to live the life of an English rocker but…He did actually hope to live longer than John Bonham. No, he didn’t want to die by inhaling his own vomit. Yes, it did only take him a week to realise that.

Fame-week over, Peter was knuckling down at the word processor again. He had really missed it. Normality was underrated. Strong coffee on the desk, piles of growing papers, a half-eaten breakfast
bagel sitting in the in tray, the smell of cigarette smoke in the air. Comfort. At least for a few minutes. He thought briefly about Stella and wondered how she was. Then he thought about Poppy.

Peter had rung Poppy’s flat as well as her office several times over the last week. Probably too many. And no answer. He contemplated going to her flat after work but he didn’t want to look like a love-struck stalker. He would just try to run into her again at that coffee shop. That was more his style. He assumed Poppy feared he would continue prying and he’d uncover all the masks she was wearing.
That’s my job. Professional prier. I’ll find all your secrets eventually
. No, he just wanted to be with her. And the sex. A week seemed like a very long time. Bugger it, he was going to her place tonight.
Just tell me where I stand, Pretty Poppy.

Apart from the lustful itch emanating from his groin, Peter’s other pain-in-the-arse was the bloke filling in for Bob. Bill Symes.
Nice bloke but such a dithering, vacillating fuck. I’m not upset about it. Okay. Possibly.
A tiny piece of Peter had relished the thought of being asked to step in temporarily as editor, but the Owner hadn’t even approached him. Bill was trying to fill Bob’s giant shoes with his tottering baby feet. According to the Owner’s message, delivered from afar to Bill, the circulation figures had sharply increased since Peter’s crime investigation column. It was Carry On Truth, of sorts. Via Bill the intermediary, the Owners said that they would like a bigger dose of sleaze added to Peter’s stories. It was
The Truth
, after all. As if violent crime wasn’t enough, Peter had to discover that that the violent crim was some sex romping, kinky killer. The kinky killer.
Actually, I could use that
, Peter thought as he scribbled it into his tattered notepad.

He glanced up from the processor to look down to the editor’s office. Bob’s name had been removed and replaced with Bill Symes’s.
Sounds like an accountant.
Bill didn’t even smoke or drink. How could he take over? Peter hadn’t stepped into that office since Bob had died. He didn’t know if he would be able to again. But Bob would have wanted him to carry on. He could feel Bob standing beside him, admonishing him for still fucking whingeing and telling him to stop dropping his bundle. There was a story to get out.
Thanks, Bobby boy. Over it
.

He flipped over a new page of his notepad and wrote down every word he could remember from the lane encounter with the dark
stranger. Donarto, McCracken, overseas crime boss.
Yes, should have dug more there.
The colony of smelly rats was larger than he thought. And the other keyword: It’s personal. What did the stranger mean? Personal? He was as far removed from being chummy with Donarto and McCracken as a rabbi was from a Nazi. Peter scribbled in large letters.
Dark stranger. Who would want to feed information to the media? Who would want to keep their identity a secret? Connecting the dots. Someone from another criminal organisation? No. They would just kill them. What if it’s a whistle blower from within the police who’s too afraid to go to their superiors? My God!
The O’Leary story was only part one.
This could spawn sequels, like Rocky. But where to from here?
Peter shut the notepad and leant back on his chair, staring at the ceiling. Connect the dots.

He was still mulling it over when the telephone rang. It was Sam. ‘Dave and me, we’re going to a stereo shop,’ he announced.

‘I didn’t know you wanted a stereo,’ Peter replied.

‘I don’t,’ Sam continued.’ But I want to go to a stereo shop.’

‘Just browsing?’

‘In a sense.’

‘You’re coming with us,’ Sam said.

‘Not this again,’ Peter shook his head. ‘Where are you?’

‘In reception. Shazza said you didn’t want visitors, so she let me use her phone. Come on. Stop mucking around,’ Sam growled. ‘Meet us outside in two minutes. We haven’t got all day.’

Peter put down the receiver, grabbed his jacket and slowly complied. Dave was standing by the reception desk. ‘We’re taking another car, by the way. Yours looks too obvious. We’ll take Shazza’s.’

***

Dave pulled up a couple of shops short of the Sounds Alive Stereo Shop in Coburg, did a U-turn and parked Shazza’s Ford on the other side of the road. Peter, in the rear seat, lay back and waited.

‘That must be the most nondescript stereo shop I’ve ever seen. Looks dead rather than alive,’ Peter remarked. The shop looked like it had been converted from something else. There were a couple of speakers on display, posters stuck to the window and nothing else. ‘Looks like business isn’t great. Are you sure you want to go in there? There would be better places selling stereos.’

‘Here.’ Sam handed Peter a leaflet.

Peter had a quick glance at it. ‘This doesn’t say anything. They don’t advertise very well.’

‘Babs mentioned a stereo shop we had to drive to in Coburg that night,’ Sam explained, ‘and I found this on the floor of her car.’

‘Do you think this is where you had to deliver the heroin?’ Peter frowned as he took a closer look at the shop. ‘You’re joking. I think Babs was having you on. Why would you want to run a drug organisation out of there?’

‘We could go in and check it out,’ Sam suggested as he opened his door. ‘We’re after a bargain, right, Dave?’

‘I’ll come along for a laugh,’ Peter swung open his door.

‘Stay here, young fella,’ Sam ordered. ‘We don’t want to be recognised. Keep the engine running in case we need to get out in a hurry.’

Dave and Sam stepped through the front door of the shop and looked about cautiously. Stereo equipment of various kinds and in all stages of assembly lined the shelves. A large poster stuck on the back wall announced that the Sounds Alive Stereo Shop had the best prices in Melbourne. Beneath that was the counter, which had various stereo accessories inside its glass display. Disco music blared from a stereo unit that had flashing red and green lights on the speakers.

‘Looks like there’s no one around,’ Sam commented as they continued to browse around the shop.

‘Maybe out the back,’ Dave said as he noticed a door with
No Entry
on it. ‘Maybe they’re up to other stuff.’

Sam was drawn to the disco unit with the lights that pulsated to the beat of the music. ‘I like that,’ he said as he turned the buttons. ‘I wonder how it would play some country music?’

‘It looks like a metal safe with buttons and dials.’ Dave examined it up close. ‘Strange writing. Russian or something?’

Sam turned the volume up to an ear splitting level until the shop was reverberating to the sound of Donna Summer.

‘Sam,’ Dave growled as he turned down the volume, ‘you’ll attract attention.’

‘That’s the idea.’

The back door opened and a man resembling an Eastern bloc wrestler squeezed through the doorway and lumbered towards Sam
and Dave. He was attired entirely in black from his bulbous neck to his feet.

‘You like?’ the man grunted. His accent sounded like a slap in the face. ‘If you like the disco beat, you’ll go big time for this baby.’

Sam twisted around to see the man’s face, as scarred and pitted as an old male cattle dog’s. ‘You’re as big as Arnie Schwarzenegger. Sound like him, too.’

‘No. I’m Russian,’ the man puffed out his chest. ‘He pussy. I’m Dimitry, former Soviet weight-lifter, now stereo salesman. I’m real Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.’ He laughed like a bellowing bull in rut. ‘Oi, oi, oi!’

Dave said, ‘It’s a solid unit,’ as he patted the metal frame. ‘That wouldn’t break at a party.’

‘We also have German stereo, but these better. Imported direct from Russia,’ Dimitry replied. ‘A factory in Moscow makes them. When they’re not making tractors and trucks, they make stereo. Has tubes instead of transistors. Much better sound. You listen.’ He pulled a CD from the side pocket of his leather jacket and slipped it into the stereo. He turned up the volume.

‘You listen!’

A blood-curdling scream blasted out of the metal, light emitting speakers. Dimitry moved to the beat. Sam and Dave covered their ears as the whole shop seemed to shake.

‘Deep Purple,’ Dimitry bellowed as he nodded his huge head up and down. ‘Greatest band on earth. I see them when they came here a few years ago. Best day of my life. Very popular in Russia.’