Frederick's Coat (24 page)

So Shane gave it to him. ‘I know that.’

‘Am I like them? Tito Costa who’s here in another town with his friend eating his favourite food, having a nice rum and — hey — dry. Normal shit.’

‘Normal’s right. But you weren’t normal that night,’ said Shane. ‘Okay. I heard enough.’

‘No thanks this time for me sharing stuff like that?’ Had Tito shifted to menacing?

Shane said, ‘At least you didn’t reduce him to begging.’

‘Huh? I didn’t say if he did or not. They just about all do.’

‘But he didn’t.’ Shane headed for the fridge, not wanting to hear Tito contradict him. ‘You need more ice? It’s melted in your glass while you been talking.’

‘You asked me to talk. I’m supposed to drink at the same time? What’s up with you today, Shanero? I see this plate of Alaskan crab, I try Canada dry the first time, and now you look distant like a cop? Huh?’

‘Why’d you dump him in the Botanic Gardens?’

‘Shane? You know why we have, like, this procedure. It’s to make a statement to anyone who deals with us, crosses us, steps out of line, or owes us: don’t.’

‘Yeah. Guess that’s one of the Family rules. Show everyone don’t ever fuck with us. Gets kind of cruel though, yeah? Sometimes.’

‘How life goes, huh?’

‘If someone tortured you I bet you’d take it like a man,’ Shane said into the cool space of the fridge.

‘I hope I would. But when you see what that kind of pain does to someone? Gee, I dunno. You think I’m that tough?’

‘I used to,’ Shane said. ‘But I’m struggling to get my head around this torturing someone. Specially a young bloke hardly started adulthood.’

‘You care, man?’ Tito’s tone was surly.

‘Yeah. I do — man.’ Shane’s entire body was on fire. ‘I bet Tito the Tougho wouldn’t beg for his life.’

‘Why you talking like this?’

‘But wouldn’t that depend on who was killing you?’ said Shane.

‘Wouldn’t care if it was my own brother. I wouldn’t beg.’

Finding a chuckle from somewhere, Shane, still peering into the fridge, said, ‘What if it was me?’

‘Now you’re talking the impossible. You? My dear friend Shanero the—’

‘The what?’ Shane turned, the gun in his hand pointed at Tito. Easy to get one as buying a burger. Done through Pete, of all people.

‘Forget Shanero. That’s who my old friend was. You’re Shane the
sewer rat. But worse. Why you doing this to me? ’Cause of the Ryan kid?’ Incredulous. ‘Nah. Why?’

‘He was the son of my best friend.’

‘And I knew that?’

‘You weren’t doing your job. You were down there with the wild animals, Pete and Mickey. Who are gonna get theirs, too.’

‘Jesus, I don’t believe this. Knocked for doing what I didn’t know? This is the business we’re in, Shane.’

‘Or no longer in.’ Shane felt utterly calm.

‘You know what? I ain’t fucking begging. Never. But we could talk about Mickey and Pete. I’d happily do the business on them. You and me could sort out that this kid happened to be—’ His eyes widened and the sensuous lips parted.

‘It’s sorted.’ Shane fired. He’d never believed a silencer could work, but it did. Just made a wet thuck, twice. Both chest shots.

Walked over to Tito, couldn’t bear to despoil that magnificent face, put one more in his chest, then stood there staring to make sure the handsome man didn’t breathe again.

‘I
was wondering if you’d call. I wanted you to.’ Dixon Kanohi answering his mobile phone.

‘Been fighting it,’ Johno said.

‘Tastes better delayed. Tell me how I can help, Johno. And I’ll tell you beforehand, consider it done. Anything. You get me? You want some people swinging from Sydney Harbour Bridge, I’ll put them there as the day’s media story and the latest tourist attraction.’

‘You always get flowery, Dix,’ Johno said.

‘You should see when I’ve stopped talking. Man, I wanted to keep holding you that day in church, at the cemetery, to put a good Maori spell on you to take all your pain away ’cause you didn’t deserve it. You made good of your life and my son’s life too. As for your son …’

‘Thanks. It hasn’t gone away. I got a private investigator to check out the finance company that put a lien on Danny’s apartment. That was his granddad’s inheritance money. My PI hit a wall of companies started in Melbourne and the trail ended in the Cayman Islands company register.’

Kanohi said, ‘What if some mean Maoris just marched in and told the guy hand over your fucking company records?’

‘Dix …?’ Johno heard his mother’s advice. ‘Promised I’d never go back to that old way.’

‘Sure. And look what happened. You’d’ve told me at the beginning I could have left injured persons strewn all over the ground and your son’d be safe.’

‘Don’t make me feel worse.’ 

‘Sorry. But I didn’t make that promise, my promise was to you. Not as if you can go do any business on him now the media made you famous as the saddest father in the land,’ said Kanohi. ‘You can have all the moral anguish you want. Meanwhile I can go and do—’

‘Only if I ask, and when I do it will be specific,’ said Johno. ‘And you want to honour our friendship, then don’t do anything drastic.’

A short pause before Kanohi’s voice came back on saying, ‘But you’re saying I can do something? Put your order in, brother, and it’ll be done.’

Internally, Johno flicked the off switch. ‘Well. I guess take from him what he can never get back.’

‘Specifically?’

‘That’s up to you.’ Johno gathered himself. ‘Now, the main guys. The cops tell me they’re looking more at your part of the world.’

‘I know just about every name that counts and some who don’t. I already put the word out, before your boy was buried I wanted names. Nothing has come back, not yet.’

‘But it will?’

‘Can’t guarantee that,’ said Kanohi. ‘Seems your Danny ran up debt because of the finance company’s horrific interest rate, plus their penalty rate. It literally buried him — sorry to put it that way.’

‘It’s what happened.’

‘You still got your Balmain bar?’

‘Only way to keep my mind distracted,’ Johno said. Not that it did.

‘Your girlfriend’s the one did the reading, right?’

‘Melanie. Why?’

‘Send her away for a couple weeks, brother. Women can talk men out of doing what’s right. And as we’re talking punishment …’

‘Talking,’ said Johno with the last of his reluctance. ‘No dead bodies either.’

‘My fellow Maori who ain’t one,’ Kanohi said. ‘I
owe
it to you to do exactly what’s just. You made my son rich and broke the cycle. I’ll come up with something. But if the main culprits turn up and I get to them first?’

‘Leave something for me,’ Johno said. Never felt so cold.

‘Johno …? That you, big J?’

His first thought: Why would a man have so much emotion in his voice just saying his name, that single letter that only one person ever called him by?

But the mind moves swiftly. Shane McNeil. He’d found Johno. He never used to serve drinks, not his role, but lately if he felt the anger needed release he’d sweep areas like the stone tiles out in the beer garden, or polish the already pristine barbecues till they shone, or get behind the bar and clean every nook and cranny. Shane, just a little different, as to be expected. As Johno would be in so many years passed. Shane McNeil, visibly upset and Johno knew why.

‘Remember when my old lady turned up that day?’ Johno’s expression was serious — no smile like the old days, shutting down any emotional reunion moment.

‘How could I forget?’ Tears were streaming down Shane’s face. ‘I was so sorry to hear about Danny’s death, Johno. I’m sorry it has to be in these circumstances.’

But Johno stayed in the past. ‘We were spooked, remember? She’d risen from the grave. Trying to laugh about it but …’ He attempted a grin, but it refused to come. ‘Where you been?’

‘Where’ve
you
been?’ Shane said.

‘Come here, you big sook.’ Johno put his arms out. ‘I’m the one grieving but leading from the front as usual.’

They embraced. He felt Shane’s taut muscles, caught the smell of cigarettes; memories started flooding back — till he plugged the leak. Not the time or place. And never would be.

Shane’s story made for sorry telling. Johno so troubled by it he moved them to the beer garden — the low splash of the waterfall to listen to, plants to catch the eye.

All these years while Johno had raised a son and built up his three businesses, his friend had sat in a prison cell. Rotting. Stewing — festering more like. Made up his mind if Shane said one word, even a
hint, that they should get back together as the old partnership, he was going to cut this dead.

When Shane said he made his living from selling drugs, Johno stood up. ‘A fucking shit ending to a shit story, Shane. It’s over for me.’

‘Please hear me out, Johno. This is going—’

‘Nowhere. Only out the door you came in.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Is that right?’ Johno ready to hit him. But he knew if he started he mightn’t be able to stop.

‘Sit down, J. Please?’

Johno could hardly speak. ‘With gutter slime? I wouldn’t be seen dead with you. Now get out before I throw you out.’

‘This is to do with your son’s death. It’s why I’m here,’ Shane said. ‘Why I was a mess just now. Please, Johno, will you sit down?’

Suddenly cold all over, Johno slowly sat down, then pointed. ‘You know what you’re saying …?’

‘I wish I didn’t,’ Shane said with a tremor in his voice. His hands were trembling too.

‘You have anything to do with it …?’

‘No,’ Shane said. ‘I’d never do something like that. Do I look the same to you, J?’

‘Stop calling me that. It’s over. What do you know about—’ couldn’t get the rest out.

‘Other than my mother, who’s got Alzheimer’s now, who knows me best?’

But Johno just stared.

‘Do I look a hardened criminal? Do I?’

‘Talk, Shane. I’m this close.’

‘Can you see something broken in me, Johno? That’s all I’m asking. You don’t want to answer, I understand. If it’s not obvious, let me say it. Prison broke me, Johno.’

‘You think that excuses you being involved in this filthy business? We grew up together, did everything — including crimes — together.
Where did drugs figure in that growing up, Shane? On the absolute no-no list, and you were there as witness to understanding why — that day my old lady showed up. A druggie. My son became one. And you, a former friend, sells this shit? I—’

‘J …?’ Shane’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I got a dead body at home …’

‘I
’m bringing Dixon Kanohi in on this,’ Johno told Shane — if only to get the hell out of that room filled with the stink of Tito Costa’s corpse.

But Shane said, ‘I don’t want anyone else involved. I did the deed but it ain’t murder and I’m not going back inside. It already broke me, like I told you. And Dixon? I thought you’d gone straighter than straight?’

Much as he didn’t feel like explaining anything, Johno felt he owed Shane in some bizarre way. So he told of Tahu Kanohi and his father feeling forever indebted. Afterwards he went back and stared at that body, its fine features hard to imagine as those of someone so sadistic.

Kanohi showed why he had kingpin leadership status in prison: four of his men, wearing overalls with the name of a fictitious removal company stamped on them, arrived with a large packing crate. They moved the body in the broad daylight of that same afternoon. Kanohi had planned what was to happen next.

That’s why Johno was at the Central City Police Station at a precise late afternoon hour the next day, with the Maori warrior’s words ringing in his ears: ‘Duplicitous? Yes. Reverting? No. This is just giving you a bullet-proof alibi while Dix and his boys apply for a loan from a money lender at sixty-five per cent interest. All right, so the boss cop will see through it when he reads the headline tomorrow morning. Why it’s duplicitous. But here’s what you can offer him back when he comes running round to ask you what the fuck you think you’re playing at. You could call it making up, but don’t make it sound like you’re mocking
him. You know cops have big egos.’

Dixon had a plan for Shane, too. But first a message.

‘Don’t look like the first man ever to do big jail time. You did about the same time as I did in the slammer. Boohoo. Am I crying? Now, this is what I want you to do …’

Going through the charade with Detective Superintendent Burrows felt bad from start to finish, as Kanohi had asked for an hour. Johno only got through it by keeping the notion in his head that his son’s torture was more of a torment than his death, more like your child being in a plane plummeting to earth and imagining the last terrifying minutes as it spiralled and rolled.

After going through Danny’s works in his unbelievably cluttered apartment, Johno chose a painting he’d done recently — a figure, clearly Frederick, bearded and smiling, wearing his big grey coat, suspended from a tree bough by a rope around his throat, with two large black crows flying away.

It didn’t help hearing Burrows’s reiteration that he and his team were ‘burning the midnight oil to bring these animals to justice’. One of those culprits was going to be in the headlines the day after tomorrow, as Johno did his bad act explaining the friendship between his son and Frederick, his suicide and the effect it had on Danny. It felt like he was dishonouring his son’s memory, but that plane kept spiralling to earth.

When a furious Burrows arrived next morning at Johno’s apartment, he asked how he got through the main entrance without buzzing. ‘I showed my police badge. Which I feel like shoving down your throat. You used us, Ryan.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about — Burrows.’ No choice but to stick to the bad acting.

‘Sure you don’t.’ He pushed a newspaper across the dining table. ‘You’ll be sick of the media by now.’

‘I haven’t read a paper since it happened.’ Though Johno could hardly miss the headline. ‘Blinded this guy with battery acid in the face? Wow.’ Said it flatly, to let the detective know he wasn’t shedding
any tears. ‘He had a lien on my son’s apartment. Lent him money at sixty-five per cent interest. What’s compounding mean, Brian?’ Would have been breezy if he wasn’t deadly serious. The plane was still going down.

‘John Sean Ryan, you’ve got a criminal record.’ This guy could have been any one of the three flying squad detectives of yesteryear, big with a beer gut, hard as nails.

Except Burrows had a different look in his eyes and lacked the physical arrogance of those erstwhile bent cops. He just looked disappointed, even hurt.

‘You think my son’s torture and murder were payback for a drug deal I got involved in? If so, that’s some dumb detective work. Do I look like one of them?’ No acting now: this was the anger rising back to the top, never mind how the cop felt.

‘At a glance? No. But don’t you dare tell me you knew nothing about this,’ said Burrows. ‘Cops aren’t what they were in your day.’

‘Didn’t think five years separated us,’ said Johno.

‘Five years and a shattering event, Ryan,’ said Burrows. ‘I’m an
old-school
straight cop, just doing my job best I can.’

‘I figured that.’

‘Good. You got any more surprises?’

‘Would you fit me up with a recording device?’

Burrows stiffened. ‘Tells me you know even more than— Well, more than I expected.’

‘Not promising anything.’ Johno felt no emotion. Had to be that way. But he would be telling Dixon that duplicity sucked. And once Shane McNeil had played his last part he’d be telling him the friendship was over, and long ago.

First he had some housekeeping to attend to. Told Melanie he’d see her in a couple of days — ‘Maybe. I’m not sure if I can sort my head out.’

She told him to take his time, she’d be there for him — and would marry him as soon as he’d filed for divorce. Neither he nor Evelyn had
bothered to do the paperwork.

He found Anita reading a book in her tiny flat. ‘I know you said you don’t want money, but I want to give you this — please.’

This time she accepted the gesture.

‘It’s only ten grand. But it keeps the wolf away for a while and there’s more. You only have to ask.’ Glad, though, she didn’t hug him, not even a touch.

His lawyer was next, instructing him to fight the finance property lien ‘with all you’ve got. I don’t care how much it costs. And anyway he won’t be writing out any more diabolical contracts. And if you win, I want the apartment gifted to Wilson Reed. Or I’ll buy him another.’

In Evelyn’s lawyer’s office he and his accountant signed, as Danny’s trustees, documents passing over all monies, assets and ‘any of Danny’s art works of your choosing’ to his legal wife, Evelyn, and his daughter Leah, adding the hundred thousand plus dollars they had refused what seemed a lifetime ago.

He deposited twenty-five thousand in Mavis Wilkinson’s account and had his accountant call her mobile to say she should check her bank statement and to pass on thanks from Johno for all she’d done for Danny.

Then he called Shane on his mobile and told him he was ready. Called Dixon and Tahu to say the same. The thought he might never come home didn’t bother him.