Black Tide

1

1

In the late autumn, down windy streets raining yellow oak and elm leaves, I went to George Armit’s funeral. It was a small affair. Almost everyone George had known was dead. Many of them were dead because George had had them killed.

My occasional employer and I sat in my old Studebaker Lark a little way down from the church. When the first mourners came out, mostly men in raven suits, Cyril Wootton said, ‘Most relieved lot I’ve seen since the plane out of Vietnam. Still, they won’t sleep easy till the ground subsides. May I be told why we’re here?’

‘Your bloke’s mate’s in deep to the Armits,’ I said.

‘How’d you find that out?’

‘Anyone could find that out. Wade through sewage for a week, that’s all it takes.

George liked him. He’d be dead otherwise.’

Two big men, sallow, black hair, moustaches, came out, followed by two women.

‘The sons, Con and Little George Armit,’ I said. ‘Con’s wife’s the thin one.’

‘Well,’ said Wootton. ‘The other one appears to have shoplifted watermelons and put them down the front of her dress.’

Con and Little George and the wives lined up, backs to us, each with wife to the right.

Con put his right hand on his thin wife’s shoulder. His left hand moved around slowly and squeezed his brother’s wife’s high right buttock.

‘Racked with grief,’ I said.

‘Reflex action,’ Wootton said. ‘Armits have been in the fruit business for many years.’

‘Here’s George.’

The box had a hard black sheen, a perfect match for the Mercedes hearse. It was carried by six young men, tanned, even height, thick necks, could have been a surfboat crew.

‘Relying on professionals to the end, I see,’ Wootton said.

When George was in place, the mourners made for their cars.

‘Well, that wasn’t exactly paydirt, old sausage,’ Wootton said. ‘You’ve brought me out here in this appalling conveyance, this hot rod, for sweet bugger all.’

2

‘Somewhere Tony’s going to pay his respects. In so deep, he’s got no choice,’ I said.

‘Strong on respect, the Armits. If he’s not here, the bastard’s last chance is to arselick the boys at the cemetery.’

‘I’m paying you for your time,’ Wootton said. ‘Who’s paying me for mine?’

‘Believe me, if I could do this without your presence, I would.’

The priest came around the corner in a white turbo Saab, its Michelins giving a plump little squeal of pleasure. He looked at us as he passed, a nightclub-owner’s pale face, cigarette tilted upward in the mouth, mobile phone at his ear.

I started the Stud and did a U-turn. A block down the street, I looked right and saw the car. A Hertz car. I turned first left, left again and parked behind the church.

‘I’m going in to say a little prayer,’ I said, opening the door. ‘Keep an eye on the back gate.’

‘Spoken like an officer,’ Wootton said.

‘Still rankles, doesn’t it, corporal.’

‘Sergeant.’

I’d known Wootton since Vietnam. He’d been in stores, stealing more goods than he dispensed.

The church door was open. Inside, the blood of the martyrs fell from the stained-glass windows and lay in pink patches. The air smelled of incense, stale vase water and brass polish.

I didn’t see him at first. There was a row of pillars across the church and he was sitting in front of the one nearest the wall to my right: man in his early forties, crew cut blond hair, little folds of tanned fat over his collar.

I walked across and stopped behind him. ‘Hello Tony.’

Tony Ulasewicz didn’t look at me, didn’t say anything.

‘Brendan sends his regards,’ I said.

Silence.

‘Remember Brendan? Brendan O’Grady. From Reservoir? From school? Your best man?

Your friend? That Brendan.’

3

Tony sniffed loudly. ‘Whadda you want?’ He shot his left cuff and looked at his watch, a big black diver’s watch.

‘Me? I don’t want anything. Brendan, he wants you to tell a lawyer where he was on the night of February 11 at 11.26 p.m.’

Tony looked at me, shrugged. He had a small scar above his left eyebrow, like a worm under the skin. ‘Dunno what you’re saying.’

‘The two hookers, Tony,’ I said. ‘Sylvia and Carlette? Out there in that fancy hotel in Marysville. You and Brendan and Jim Beam and the hookers. Chatting, reading magazines. Just when some person unknown was shooting Frank Zakia in his driveway in Camberwell. With a .22 pistol. Many times.’

‘Know nothing about that,’ said Tony, getting up. ‘Gotta go.’

I put a hand on his shoulder, a meaty shoulder. He resisted, I leaned, he sat.

‘Tony,’ I said, ‘Brendan’s going down big time. Frank’s wife ID’d him, not a doubt in her mind. She knows him. He was in the house three days before, arguing with Frank. Now Brendan says he couldn’t have been the one topped Frank because at that moment he was off with you, screwing hookers in Marysville. But you’re gone, the hookers are gone, hotel doesn’t know if it was you and Brendan or the Pope and Elvis in the room.

Plus the cops find the .22 in Brendan’s office. Plus Brendan’s got more form than Phar Lap.’

Tony’s chin slowly moved down to meet his collarbone.

‘Brendan’s going, Tony,’ I said. ‘And blokes in there are waiting for him. Death penalty, that would be easier. Nicer even.’

Tony’s shoulders went weak. He tilted at the waist until his forehead rested on the pew in front.

‘Can’t,’ he said, voice spitty. ‘Fucking can’t.’

‘Why? He’s your mate.’

‘People want him. He’s owed big, three hundred grand, more, three-fifty, I don’t know.

He put the weight on them, they want him gone.’

‘Frank’s wife? The ID?’

‘Bullshit. Bitch wanted Frank done. In it over her tits.’

4

‘How’s that?’

‘Fucking. True fucking love fucking. She’s rooting a bloke, his brother owes Bren. This way, they top Frank, she gets Frank’s money. Then there’s about eighty grand belongs to Bren. Frank was hanging on to it. Bitch gets that too. And Bren goes in, close that gate, he’s history, everyone’s happy.’

‘And you?’

Tony looked up at me, sniffed again. ‘I live,’ he said. ‘I fucking live.’

‘You know Frank was going to get it?’

He shook his head. ‘No fucking way.’

I took my hand off his shoulder. ‘Brendan says, “Tell Tony I’m still his mate. I know he’s under the gun. He should’ve told me. Tell him, he does the right thing now, it’s forgotten. I’ll look after him.’’’

Tony sighed, a desperate, drawn-out sound. ‘Bren’s a dangerous bloke,’ he said.

Silence. The light in the stained-glass windows was dimming, shadows growing everywhere, the sort of cold only churches can harbour coming up from the flagstone floor.

‘He says he knows how the Armits fit. He’ll settle them, take the push off.’

Tony tried a laugh, ended up coughing. ‘Jesus,’ he said when it stopped. ‘Fucking smokes. Bren got the fucking vaguest what it costs to get the Armits off my back?’

‘One-sixty.’

Tony’s head came around, eyebrows up. ‘He knows that?’

I nodded.

He sucked his teeth, hissing noise. ‘Where’d he hear that?’

‘I told him.’

He studied me. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘fucked if I know where you got that. Anyway. Bren walks on the Frank thing, it’s not over.’

5

‘Bren knows that. He says he can handle these people. He also says to tell you he’s got people who still owe him favours. That is, if you feel you can’t tell the truth about where he was.’

Tony suddenly found the back of his right hand interesting, freckled back of hand. After a while, he said, ‘How’d y’know I’d be here?’

‘Not an interesting question,’ I said. ‘The question you want to ask, Tony, is this: Am I better off square with the Armits and onside with Bren or one-sixty deep and offside with Bren?’

He looked at me, parts of his face moving, fingers moving. ‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘you think about it, I’m a prick. Tell Bren I know I’m a prick. Know him since I was eight. His mum made me playlunch. He’s my mate. I’m a prick. Okay. What do you do when you’re a prick?’

‘The man who’s looking out for Bren’s interests, he’s outside. And we need the hookers.’

Tony stood up and moved his shoulders, rubbed his jaw. We walked down the side aisle towards the door.

‘Come down for the night,’ he said. ‘Gold Coast hookers. Ballet dancer the one. Sylvia.

Got too big. You had experience of ballet dancers?’

‘Not that I can remember.’

‘You’d remember. Your whole life. Looking at the lid you’d still remember.’

Wootton got out of the car when he saw us.

‘Tony, this is someone hired by Bren,’ I said as Wootton approached.

They shook hands.

‘Tony’s happy to place Brendan elsewhere on the night,’ I said. ‘Also to tell you where to find a ballet dancer who got too big and had to take up another mode of self-expression.’

‘Too big?’ said Wootton. ‘For me, ballet dancers can never get too big. Tony, Jack’ll go with you, show you where my office is. We can get everything sorted out.’

Tony looked at me. ‘Armits,’ he said. ‘Squared first.’

‘It’s got to be up front,’ I said to Wootton.

6

‘What’s the figure?’

‘Hundred and sixty,’ Tony said.

Wootton whistled. ‘Asking. So they’ll take what?’

‘Hundred and sixty,’ Tony said, with certainty.

‘That hard?’ Wootton frowned.

‘That hard.’

Wootton went for a little walk around a tree, nodding his head, preoccupied, air of a man hearing music in his head. When he came back, he pulled a face, held up his pudgy right hand. ‘To be clear, Tony, you are into the Armits for this sum. Fully paid, they would have no objection to you making a statement that will clear Brendan?’

Tony nodded, licked his lips. ‘George said to me, with Little George there, “Tony,’’ he said, “you can pay me what you owe, I can kill you or you can fucken do what I tell you till I think you’ve paid me off.’’’

Wootton was still frowning. ‘And you can produce the ladies?’

‘Yeah. Well, I reckon.’

‘That’s yes?’

‘Yes.’

Wootton looked at me, tilted his head, oiled hair gleaming in the fading light. ‘Armits,’

he said.

‘Not at the graveyard,’ I said. ‘I draw the line.’

‘After they drop George,’ said Wootton. ‘A quiet word with Con. A man who squeezes his sister-in-law’s buttock at his father’s funeral will understand the meaning of urgency.

We’ll run out the distance but start at eighty grand. Half tomorrow, half after we get the hookers on tape.’

2

He was waiting outside my office, cracked leather briefcase on the pavement, a thin figure with a long face on which all the lines seemed to run south and a full head of silver hair, combed back. Most of his weight was on an aluminium walking stick with a 7

fat rubber tip. The autumn wind, full of broad and nasty hints of winter, was whipping his grey raincoat around his legs.

‘Looking for me?’ I asked.

He gave me a looking over with clear blue eyes. ‘Jack Irish.’ Not a question.

I nodded.

He sniffed. ‘Don’t ya keep office hours?’

‘Called out urgently,’ I said. ‘Should have put a note on the door.’

He carried on eyeing me, the look of a talent scout. A faintly disappointed talent scout.

‘Spit of yer old man,’ he said. ‘Big as. And the face. Bill was pretty hard though.’

I looked down at myself, gained no pleasure from the experience. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m a bit older than he was.’

The man thought about this. ‘Still,’ he said. ‘Bit soft.’

No immediate way to controvert this statement occurred to me.

He changed hands on the walking stick and put out his right. Big hand, swollen knuckles. ‘Des Connors. Saw ya in yer bloody pram. Never knew what happened to Bill’s family after. Then I’m thinkin about needin a lawyer, look in the book, see this John Irish.’

We shook hands. Age hadn’t entirely withered his grip. I unlocked the door, ushered him in, got him seated. He put the briefcase on his lap, looked around the spartan chamber. ‘How are ya?’ he asked. ‘Mum still sound?’

‘Dead.’

Des shook his head. ‘Happens,’ he said. ‘Pity. Looker she was. My oath. Remember when Bill spotted her. We was buildin at the Shop, Melbourne Uni, just after the war, up on the scaffoldin, hot day, first week of the footy season. Can still be bloody hot then. Course it can be bloody cold too. Anyway, bunch of girls, three, four of em, rich girls, very smarty. Not the girls we went dancin with, I can tell ya. They come along, sit down on this bit of grass, just down there where we can see em, us standin up there on the boards with the bloody great bits of rock. Mind you, married man, back from the war, didn’t give em a look.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t.’

8

‘Well, you have a look, don’t ya? Just a look. Not a lot of harm in that, is there?’

‘No harm at all, hardly,’ I said.

‘No. Tell you, any bloke’s a bloke’d have a look at your mum, scuse me sayin that.

Fetchin lass, the hair like copper.’ He got a faraway look. ‘Still a fair bit of copper goin into buildins then. Copper and lead. Lasts fer bloody ever, y’know. Repels the elements.

Everythin’s rubbish today. Bloody plastic.’

‘That’s how he met my mother?’

‘A character, Bill, a character. Course, finished the school. Smart. Coulda bin anythin.

Doctor, anythin. Had a wit, too, you’d fall off the bloody scaffoldin, you’d be laughin that hard.’

‘What happened then?’ I didn’t know any of this. My mother never talked to me about my father. The only people who talked to me about my father were ancient Fitzroy Football Club supporters and they regarded me as an evolutionary cul de sac in the Irish family.

‘What happened? Oh. Well, Bill, he looks over and he says, puts on this serious voice, he says, “Now girls, read us rough workin men somethin improvin.’’ And the girl, yer mum that is, she doesn’t blink, not a giggle, she opens a book and she reads a poem out loud. Bill, he didn’t expect that. Just stood there. Can’t remember a word but it sounded lovely.’ Des paused, blinked a few times. ‘Anyway, that’s a long time ago.’