Good Money (33 page)

‘Exactly. Shares. Maybe even in mining companies.'

‘What are you on about?'

‘Before they were killed, Cesarelli and Gage were making shitloads of money. But they had to clean it up before they could splurge on a gangster mansion or a
Maserati GranTurismo.
'

‘A what?'

‘That day in the café with Mabor, Cesarelli said he'd lost money on a bad deal.'

‘You have to back up a bit.'

‘I heard him. One day Gaetano Cesarelli said out loud, in
public
, that he had lost some money on a deal.
What deal?
I ask myself. Could he have tried to cleanse it through some complex financial transaction? No. Because he was a dummy.'

Vince winced. ‘Twaddle. Mad about conspiracies, you. Too much internet.'

‘But what if he had the help of a smart lawyer.'

‘Eh?'

‘Finchley Price.'

‘Price?' Vince glanced across at me. ‘All right, I'm listening now.'

‘Suppose Price put Gaetano's money into the Mount Percy Sutton joint venture.'

‘Via a third party?'

‘Yes. A friend.'

35

THE ATMOSPHERE
in the regional airline terminal had the strained quality of the visitor room at a prison. Some flight attendants with small suitcases were gathered in the foyer, groomed, fabulous, and bored. A man in a Dockers shirt, family in tow, passed the pre-boarding time nattering with a fellow worker. When the doors opened, he snatched up his bags and rushed out, failing to say goodbye to his children. His wife took them away, a boy and a girl, with the resignation of the forsaken.

On impulse I hugged Vince. He had come inside to wait with me even though I'd insisted it was not necessary. I suppose we had bonded, in a way — possibly during the fruitless hours we'd spent going over the companies who had invested in the Mount Percy Sutton venture, without making any connections, or progress, at all. On our own, it was difficult to work out which ones were legit and which were possible fronts for gangster money.

He gave me a hearty slap on the back and out I went with the other passengers, men mostly, across the tarmac into the swirling wind and the deafening drone of propellers. I stowed my bag under the seat in front — the overhead lockers were already full — and buckled up. A bear of a man, a stranger to soap, took the seat in front of me. I inhaled his stink as he strong-armed the hostie for a biscuit.

‘When we start service.' No hint of revulsion in her smile.

An hour in the air and the patchwork farmland changed to oceans of sand and spinifex. From the window I could see the occasional incision of a road or open-cut mine; from the air they resembled ulcers, gaping holes of sickly green, and then a Nowheresville airstrip — and we were there. The plane touched down and taxied to a high fence, a covered waiting area, and a shed. None of my fellow passengers were in a hurry to leave the terminal. I started to compose a text to Vince but soon twigged to the lack of a signal. I cursed and a bloke in an airport uniform standing nearby had a good laugh. ‘Telstra only, here,' he said. ‘If you're lucky.'

‘How do you get to town?'

‘Got legs, don't ya? It's only two K.' He waited for hysterics.
Oh jocularity.
I played it straight and made a show of looking at my suitcase, back to him. ‘Walk? Really?'

‘Nah!' he giggled. ‘I'll get you a lift.'

He went from group to group, having a good yak with each, and trotted back. ‘Lockheed Martin. Always good for a lift.' He nodded to two men and a woman loading their bags into a four-wheel drive. The woman wore outback get-up: boots, jeans, and shirt. I smiled at her. ‘Lockheed Martin? Don't they make nuclear bombs?'

She pursed her lips, looked at my bright red nails. ‘Drop you where?'

I squeezed into the back seat and we drove past rusted car bodies on the side of the road to the edge of town, where the caravan park sprawled with squat, temporary-looking dwellings. I wheeled my bag over the gravel and into the tiny reception room that doubled as a shop and café and stank of yesterday's hamburgers. A grey little woman looked for my name in the book. She took a key from its nail and led the way through the park, full of empty tent sites, some vans, and row upon row of dongas.

‘Rodney and Ida Lloyd, are they here?'

‘Rod and Ida?'

‘Yup.'

‘Friend of theirs?'

‘Uh huh.'

‘Well, now. Sometimes they leave the van and go driving. Camp out.' She pointed out the Lloyd's van — locked up, no car beside it. ‘Back around dusk. If they come back.'

My unit backed onto the fence; beyond the fence was the immeasurable desert.

She gave me the key. ‘Need anything, come down the shop.'

The unit was one room with a kitchen, table and chairs, TV, two broken recliner-rockers, and a double bed. I opened a cupboard and found the bathroom — disintegrating fittings dripping brown water. I unpacked and opened my laptop. No wifi. I opened a few drawers in the kitchen: a couple of dessert spoons, one serrated knife, some mugs covered in grime. The fridge droned, cooling nothing.

Vince's background on the Lloyds was not wholly useful. ‘They are your typical informed shareholders,' he'd said. ‘In court every day for the Bailey Range case. When they went to the Blue Lagoon office, they knew who to ask for.'

‘
Whom
. For
whom
to ask.'

‘Catholic?'

‘Is the Pope?'

‘Explains a lot. No other mention of the Lloyds' stunt at the Blue Lagoon offices in the press. So I spoke to the journalist who wrote the article. The police were called and they were removed by force. The company didn't press charges, and the matter was forgotten. Certainly, no one took up their cause.'

‘Tacit pressure from Brodtmann?'

Vince ignored me. ‘If you show sympathy, they might open up a bit.'

‘They lost everything. I have genuine sympathy for the Lloyds,' I said.

Vince frowned, thought for a moment. ‘Talk to them. But be careful.'

I'd paid for the flight direct to Laverton. But the nearest hire car was in Leonora, over a hundred kilometres away. Consequently, I had no ride.

I left the unit and walked around the town. Every third house was boarded up. Some appeared abandoned but were actually occupied, a fact I registered when a mangy dog came out to see what I was up to. The main road was deserted. Truth was, I enjoyed that last-woman-on-earth feeling; the town resembled the aftermath of an apocalypse — zombie or otherwise. I passed a creepy-looking motel. Apart from the caravan park, it was the only accommodation in town — except for the pub, a handsome two-storey Victorian structure, with a lush apron of green lawn. But at night the noise in the pub would be insufferable. Next to the pub was a new-looking police station, the only building yet to acquire its sprinkle of moribund dust. A small office near a statue of a man on a bicycle served as a library, and I made plans to return and use the internet.

Further along was a museum with the fancy name of The Great Beyond. To kill some time I paid my twenty bucks and saw a ten-minute movie about the early explorers. A Black Keys song played in the gift shop. I hung around, looked at every item twice, and then bought a NATMAP of the area and a hand-dyed silk scarf.

‘Made by a local Aboriginal artist,' the woman behind the counter said, with the detached affability of a nurse about to inject.

The supermarket, more of a last-chance supply depot, was closed due to fire damage. ‘Try the BP,' a man in the post office suggested. This did not sound promising, but the service station was part warehouse and its shelves were filled with tinned goods. I bought some tuna and a gigantic can of peaches and a loaf of bread.

In the public library, I found an unoccupied public computer and checked my emails. There was one from Vince:
Mount Percy Sutton coordinates attached. I've checked — it's about a hundred and fifty K from Laverton. Between the Anne Beadell Hwy and the Great Central Rd.

Before I left, Vince and I had speculated that if the meeting with Lloyds proved to be a dead end then perhaps it might be worth my time checking out the location of the Brodtmann mine. Since I was already in the area, having a look up-close might yield some worthwhile information. If one of the Bailey Range directors had chosen that area to commit suicide, there must be something significant to it. I spread my NATMAP across a table and marked the site. The closest geological landmark was a depression called Dead Mans Soak, a vacancy between two dirt roads.

I folded up the map and went back to the computer. I took the DVD from my bag and slotted it. I clicked on the file and opened the report. I made one more futile attempt to drag it onto the desktop. The little box came up asking for the password. I typed:
Tania.

Nothing.

Goldtriple.

Nothing. It was probably some obscure thing only she knew.

I typed:
microdermabrasion
.

The box closed. The document was free. I performed a
control-P
and hit
OK
, and the printer on the librarian's desk sprang into action.

I made use of the stapler and went out to call Brophy from one of three public phones on the main drag. The last one worked.

‘S'up, yo,' Marigold said. ‘We cool?'

‘No.'

‘But I told you straight. And you wanted to know, am I right?'

‘We are not cool. You need to make a grovelling apology to your dad and an even bigger one to me.'

‘Wha?'

‘You heard. Get your dad.'

The time it took to drag Brophy from the studio used up most of my coins. He sounded sleepy. ‘When you coming back?'

‘Soon. I don't know. I miss you.'

I headed back to the caravan park and passed a group of people walking up the middle of the road. A woman, whose face bore the scars of many bashings, stopped. ‘Hey,' she said, and we shook hands. ‘They call me Walkabout Annie.' A broken smile.

‘I'm Stella. Good to meet you.'

‘You got any money, Stella?'

‘No. Sorry.'

‘No worries. You have a nice day.'

‘You too.'

‘I like your nails.'

The group walked up to the pub and joined the people sitting on the lawn in groups of two or three, waiting for something to happen, or just passing the time.

The Lockheed Martin woman was in the shop when I got back to the caravan park. The cashier whispered to me. ‘She's with that over-the-horizon radar mob; they manage it.'

‘Keeping us safe. Excellent.'

I caught up to her in the car park. ‘Hey, I don't suppose I could get a lift out to Dead Mans Soak? Not far — north-east, only a hundred and fifty K.'

‘Afraid not,' she said. ‘Try the pub.'

It was getting on to evening when I returned to the unit. The Lloyds' van was in darkness. A falcate moon drifted between clouds. I ate the tuna and some peaches and watched an SBS documentary interrupted by bursts of static interference. Male voices drifted across from the pub, drunken, booming. It was not the kind of revelry I felt inclined to join.

Later, I tested the shower; it was no more than a trickle of warm water. I closed the window and put on a clean T-shirt — an extra-large I scored at a conference — and my last pair of fresh undies, and slipped under the covers. As I lay not sleeping on the bed, other voices reached in from the desert. A woman's anguished howl, a man's menacing bellow. The shouting echoed back and forth for a long time. Something bad was happening out there.

36

AROUND MIDDAY
I was reading in my unit when I heard a four-wheel drive on the gravel outside. I pulled back the blind on my window and saw a dusty Patrol parked in front of the Lloyds' van. I put on my corporate-looking striped jacket and the scarf from The Great Beyond. I put the printout of the report in the folder Vince had prepared and grabbed a pen. I gave them ten minutes to settle then walked around to their van.

‘Hello?' I called from the path. A woman in sandals, shorts, and a T-shirt flung open the wire door. ‘Yes?'

‘Stella Hardy.' My hand out ready to shake, smiling.

‘Yes?'

‘I wondered if I could speak to you about Blue Lagoon Corp.'

‘I don't believe it.' She came down the narrow steps. ‘Ida Lloyd.' She gripped my hand in both of hers. ‘Those crooks are finally getting looked into.' She turned. ‘You there, Rod?'

‘Been out prospecting?' I asked Ida.

‘Ten days. No TV, no phone. After a while you get sick of tinned food and trying to bathe in a mug of water.'

I made an ostentatious shudder. ‘How'd you go?'

‘Not much. Don't get me wrong — it's magic, the big sky, the desert. We love it.'