ThornyDevils (9 page)

The cold had overcome him. Maybe the Beatles could have written a song about the Melbourne winter.
Freeze, freeze me
… Peter’s shivering was now competing with his teeth chattering.

As he started to jog to the car, he noticed two men he had presumed were the sons of the dying man climbing into a Mercedes parked immediately behind the Stag. An older man was getting into the back seat. When he got closer, he recognised the older man. It was Slugger.
What the fuck? Slugger?
Peter called out, but the Mercedes was already down the street before he had reached the footpath.

He jumped in the Stag, switched on the ignition and turned the heater to maximum. Saved from frostbite, but only just. He looked around. Mad Dog had already gone. A smile of satisfaction stole across Peter’s face. Thanks to modern technology, he had scooped the other papers. Then he realised. He hadn’t been able to discover the names of the victims. He fell out of the car and went to the mailbox. No mail. He thought of asking the neighbours but that was likely to cause problems, considering his lack of apparel. How was the headline going to read?
Mystery men shot mysteriously. One man mysteriously dies. Shit!

After a quick change of clothes back home, Peter swung by Slugger’s flat on the tenth floor of the Housing Commission high-rise on Hoddle Street, just opposite the Collingwood Town Hall. As expected, Slugger wasn’t answering. There was a note attached to the door with a tack. Peter glanced up and down the corridor before tearing it open. It said in a manic scrawl:
To the nurse. Gone to help friends. Slugger
.

He reattached the note to the door and ran to the lift as soon as he heard its doors grind open. At St Vincent’s Hospital he was recognised at the front door by a cop and given his marching orders. However, he was able to get out of the cop that the two men were both now deceased.

Shazza stopped typing the moment Peter pushed open the front door. She didn’t say a word but made a series of hand gestures at him and then down the corridor. She then mimed a large belly with both hands. It was Bob.
Got it,
he gestured back with a thumbs-up. Shazza returned a thumbs down.
Shit. I’m in deep trouble
.

Peter trudged to his desk where Bob was waiting, arms akimbo, mandatory cigarette dangling from his mouth. Mad Dog was sitting nearby looking flushed. He had removed his bandana to reveal long hair twisted into bits of twine.

‘Got there first,’ Bob muttered.

From past experience, a quiet Bob was not a good sign. Peter stiffened, waiting for the onslaught.

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks to the scanner,’ Peter replied with a faint smile.

‘That’s good,’ Bob returned, his voice growing in volume. He took several frantic puffs on his cigarette then stubbed it out. ‘But what in the fuck happened after that?’ he asked menacingly, his voice increasing yet again ‘Pray tell?’

‘We got great photos and a great story,’ Peter rejoined, on the defensive. He looked at Mad Dog for support but only got a vacant stare.

‘I’ve just had the police commissioner on the phone saying that you both acted like a pair of fucking cowboys,’ Bob bellowed. His face florid, he pointed at Peter. ‘Not wearing a shirt?’ He shook his head.

‘I was…’ Peter attempted to reply but Bob cut in.

‘And Mad Dog thinks he’s at the fall of Saigon.’

‘You wanted a story and we did what we had to do, Bob,’ Peter argued. ‘We’re not social workers.’

Bob sucked in a deep breath and softened. ‘All right. But some words of advice. Are you listening, Mad Dog?’

‘I hear you, Chief.’

‘You don’t have to be the cop’s friends, but it might help. If you can’t, then at least be diplomatic. And Peter, don’t render assistance. It clouds your judgement. Remain detached. No matter how you much you want to help. Remember, you’re not part of the story.’ Bob paused for another breath. ‘And as for you, Mad Dog, the war is over. Repeat. The war is over. Most of the photos you took can’t be published in a paper, not even ours. Do you think the public is going to want to see pictures of locals with their heads blown apart? Bodies undercover and background photos only, all right?’ He stopped to light a fresh cigarette.

‘But I thought that’s what you wanted,’ Mad Dog grunted.

‘In case you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll tell you: In my younger days, when my gut was smaller, when I only smoked two packs a day and only drank a bottle of Jameson’s a day, I was a crime reporter for the
New York Post
. That’s right boys, the
New York Post
. And before that I was a special correspondent during the Israeli Six Day War. So, I think I know what I’m talking about.’

‘Got it, Chief. Loud and clear.’ Mad Dog threw a mock salute. ‘Under control. Can I go?’

‘Go on. Piss off.’

Mad Dog stood up, grabbed his bandana and headed towards the coffee machine.

‘This Detective Senior Sergeant Dale McCracken,’ Bob continued, ‘I presume he’s a right pain in the arse?’

‘A fucking bleeding haemorrhoid, Bob,’ Peter replied.

‘When you go to the press conference tomorrow, I want you to be humble. Don’t be the pain in the arse you usually are. We need the cops on our side. You can’t do this job without them. Until you can say that the commissioner is your major source of information, we have to work in with the cops. ’

‘All right. I suppose I overstepped it.’

‘Okay,’ Bob smacked his hands together. ‘We have to concentrate on today’s deadline. What have you got?’

‘Two men shot at a house in Clifton Hill. One man dead straight away and the other died in hospital.’

‘Know who they are? Know what they were up to? I’m sure they weren’t two innocent men going off to work. They must have form.’

‘Cops weren’t speaking. Couldn’t talk to any neighbours.’

‘Come on, Peter,’ Bob snapped, ‘it’s not flipping amateur hour. The other papers probably have that information already.’ He banged his hand on Peter’s desk. Peter was beginning to regret accepting this ‘promotion’. Catching people having affairs was starting to seem much easier.

‘One of my sources was there,’ he recalled, ‘but I couldn’t speak to him. He was getting in a car with two men who I presumed were the sons of one of the men who were shot. I haven’t been able to find him since then.’

‘His name?’

‘Slugger Douglas,’ Peter replied. ‘He’s a punch-drunk ex-boxer. Comes in the Tote and rambles on about his boxing days. Says he used to work for the Painters and Dockers after he gave up the fight game. Supposedly. He doesn’t usually take his psych medication so he’s not the most reliable. But he’s the one who gave me the information about Tony Donarto and the starlet.’

‘I remember him. Saw him fight at Festival Hall when I was a kid. Had a powerful left hook.’

‘He seems to know the family,’ Peter added.

‘They don’t sound like the Brady Bunch, do they?’ Bob joked.

‘Maybe they’re the last ones standing from the Painters and Dockers’ days. There wouldn’t be many of them left on the street. Most
of those old union blokes are either encased in cement or in jail. And the Painters and Dockers Union got deregistered a few years ago. So who are these people?’

‘Is that how he knows about Tony Donarto?’

Peter drummed the desk with his fingers. ‘He would never let on. Old bugger.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Okay. If we go with what we have,’ Bob sighed heavily. ‘We’ll be just saying the same stuff as the other papers.’

Peter was deep in thought. ‘O’Connor, O’Gara, O’Toole, O’Lara,’ he rattled off. ‘Slugger mentioned a name once:
I have to go and see Mrs O’…she needs my help…Mrs Oooo
,’ He picked up a pen and threw it in frustration. It bounced off the back partition.

‘O’Leary,’ Bob suggested. ‘O’Leary Stevedores. Maybe?’

‘O’Leary. That’s it!’ Peter exclaimed.

‘They’re a family company. They run the container traffic at South Wharf. The O’Learys set themselves up after the union went guts up. I think there are three sons.’

‘Maybe only two now,’ Peter surmised, adding, ‘How do you know the O’Learys?’

‘They’re big patrons of the St Kilda footy club. I’ve met them at functions. Solid blokes. I think one of them may have played a few games in the seniors.’

‘Mrs O’Leary was helping a bloke who I presume was her husband.’ Peter was thinking aloud. ‘He was balding. I could see grey hair. She called him Pat. That’s it, Pat.’

‘Are you sure,’ Bob exploded. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Plain as day.’

‘Pat O’Leary disappeared two years ago,’ Bob reached for a critical cigarette.

‘Come again?’

‘The rumour was that he got murdered after dogging on the union officials and that he ended up in pieces in the bay.’

‘Well, that can be ruled out,’ Peter replied.

‘Or that he pissed off to a South American country. We go to press,’ Bob bellowed and flung his arms around cheerfully. ‘Mad Dog, get those photos developed pronto. The ones that can be printed.’

‘Done, Chief.’ Mad Dog emptied his cup of coffee.

‘I don’t know how you did it, Peter,’ Bob said as he grabbed him in a
bear hug. ‘You fucked it up from start to finish and you’ve still scooped it. Well done. We’re ahead of the pack already.’

‘It’s a talent I’ve developed. Just fucking up in the right place, at the right time.’

The headline read:
A Dead Man Returns and Ends up Dead
.

Peter was starting to worry about Slugger’s disappearance. Scenarios were whirling through his head a lot faster than the Housing Commission lift that was laboriously dragging him up to the tenth floor.

Slugger knew a lot more than his brain-damaged thinking let on, but the medications might not have been working yet. Without them, Slugger knew absolutely nothing. He was in the terminal phases of FITH syndrome. Peter banged on Slugger’s front door with no response. He then tried to endear himself with the onsite manager, a grizzled old dear with a face like parchment. He played the concerned relative and
could she please let him in? Poor Slugger may have had a fall and be lying unconscious on the bathroom floor. Please?
Not a hope in hell, although Peter did manage to elicit that Slugger had gone out early this morning and hadn’t returned yet, and that the nurse had also been around looking for him. That was all—after slipping the old bitch twenty dollars.
Rip off
.

After that encounter he went by the Tote, hoping to find Slugger holding up the bar with another disjointed fight story, as Peter drowned himself in a load of celebratory Victoria Bitters for a job well done. Peter was even going to shout the bar, provided it wasn’t full. The first disappointment of the night was that Slugger wasn’t in and no one had seen him for a couple of days. Hooray Harry had the first beer lined up, even before Peter sat down. The second disappointment was when Peter gave up the celebration halfway through his fourth beer.

The events of the morning kept running through his head. The balding man lying on the garage floor bleeding like a stuck pig, his
wife screaming for help. Blood, blood and more blood. He hadn’t ever seen that level of carnage. And Peter had thought he’d seen it all. Then there was Slugger. Where was he?

This story is going to explode and I need Slugger. I have to be at the epicentre not on the periphery. It’s my story. I’m the headline around here.
Peter put down the half-empty fourth glass when his hands started to shake, splashing beer over the bar. He sat stunned, watching them as if they weren’t part of his body. He grabbed hold of the bar, but the shaking wouldn’t stop.

‘You okay, mate?’ Harry said. ‘You’re as pale as a ghost.’ He sidled up to Peter.

‘Must be the dim sims I ate at lunch.’ Peter attempted at a joke until his arms joined in. Peter felt his whole body convulsing.

‘You’re in shock,’ Harry commented, matter of factly. ‘Shock. I know that.’

‘What?’ Peter was beginning to feel nauseated. He hopped off the barstool and looked in the direction of the toilets on the other side of the bar. Too far away. He edged closer to the door.

‘I had it after I was in a car accident ten years ago,’ Harry reminisced. ‘Me mate’s head was in me lap. His eyes were…’

‘Got to go.’ Peter staggered out of the door, his hand clamped over his mouth. He got as far as the house next door before vomiting into the gutter. After straightening himself up, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘You want another beer and some greasy dim sims to wash it down?’ Harry called out from the doorway.

‘Next time it will be on your fucking lap. I promise that.’

Peter staggered back to the flat and dropped onto the bed without removing his clothes. He could only summon enough energy to turn off the scanner before falling into a stupor.
Fuck the scanner. I don’t need it,
were his final conscious thoughts before succumbing to the exhaustion.

He didn’t know whether it was the shouting or the thumping at the front door that brought him, in degrees, out of his sleep. It sounded urgent, whoever it was. He still felt too paralysed to get out of bed but was alert enough to check the alarm clock. Ten-thirty.
I just want to sleep. I don’t care if you’re dying out there. I don’t care.
Then again, maybe it was Irmgard.
Irmgard, mein liebes Fräulein.
With that
thought he willed himself to haul his body upright.
She’s returned!
But as he neared the front door, Peter discerned that the shouting was a man, a frantic man. Peter was reluctant to open the door. For all he knew, it could be a psychopath with a blunt axe on the other side. He had just picked up the phone to call the police, when he heard a familiar name called through the door.
Jack
! He put down the receiver and scurried to the door.

‘Where in the hell have you been?’ Peter shouted as he threw open the door.

‘I’ve been knocking and calling out for the past fifteen minutes, Jack,’ Slugger breathed with relief. ‘I was nearly ready to knock down the door.’

Peter waved him inside and closed the door, after looking around to see if Slugger had company. Slugger was in wild-eyed and dishevelled. Peter had seen him like this many times before. He looked as if he was being chased by demons.
He hasn’t taken his psych pills today for certain,
Peter thought, as he directed Slugger to the couch. Slugger sat down tentatively, perching himself on the edge of the seat.