The Big Ask (22 page)

I found a park beneath a palm tree on the Upper Esplanade and we walked down the slope to the openmouthed clown face that formed the entrance to Luna Park. The old funfair was showing its age, though there remained something irresistible about its tawdry attractions. The screams of rollercoaster riders advanced to meet us, echoing the cries of the gulls.

Red had invited Tarquin along and the three of us merged with the masses. Two juveniles in baggy jeans and windcheaters, a fatherly figure in corduroy trousers and a hiking jacket, a .40 calibre semi-automatic in his pocket.

We went to the cashier's window and I bought a wad of ride tickets. ‘Go pick up some girls,' I told the boys, dispensing cash and tickets. ‘See you in two hours.'

At noon, right on schedule, Farrell was waiting at the entrance, leaning against a fortune-telling slot-machine. He was wearing his grey leather blouson, his hands thrust into the front pockets of his tight-fitting jeans, thumbs out, framing his crotch. ‘Now I see why you chose this place,' he said. ‘The joys of single fatherhood, right?'

‘Save the soft soap,' I snarled.

‘You're pissed off,' he said. ‘I can appreciate that. How was I supposed to know there was a kid there? I'm not the only one to blame here. It cuts both ways.'

‘You nearly roast my son alive and it's
my
fault?' I said. ‘Your logic defeats me.'

He fell into step as I headed back into the carnival, past the pinball arcade and the hall of mirrors. ‘Maitland would never have got that office together if somebody wasn't bankrolling him,' he said. ‘It's pretty obvious that Agnelli's behind it and that you made the arrangements. If you start a war then take a kid into the combat zone, you can't blame other people if he gets hurt.'

We reached the Ferris wheel. The great machine advanced in fits and starts, one set of riders alighting and another taking their place, swinging seat by swinging seat. A paradigm of the democratic process. When an empty cage dropped into the loading position, I stepped forward and handed the attendant two tickets.

‘Let's talk about Darren Stuhl,' I said, climbing aboard.

Farrell hesitated, then grudgingly followed me. ‘What about him?'

A roustabout dropped the safety bar into place and hauled on a lever. Our swaying seat jerked forward and upward. The Big Dipper thundered past, girls screaming, then we began to revolve smoothly, rising high above the swallow-tail pendants on the turrets of Ye Olde Giggle Palace, far above the calliope cadences of the carousel, up into the open air.

The bay extended before us and the crystal towers of the city rose in a cluster that seemed close enough to touch. A gusty wind had begun chopping at the water, raising whitecaps, and the light off the sea was harsh in our faces.

‘You've caused me a lot of needless aggravation, Farrell.' The wind tore and snatched at my words.

Farrell eased a pair of sunglasses from the narrow slit of his jacket pocket and put them on. ‘Like I said, I just told the cops what I saw.'

‘Darren Stuhl was a shit,' I said. ‘But I didn't kill him.'

Farrell didn't answer. He just stared out to sea, as if the row of tankers inching their way along the shipping channel was the most compelling sight in the universe.

‘I imagine the cops weren't the only ones you talked to,' I said. ‘You offered to talk to Bob Stuhl, or his people, about compensation for what Darren did to my teeth. So I imagine you must have communicated with him on the circumstances surrounding his son's death.'

Farrell folded his arms across his chest. ‘What if I did?'

‘Well since you're Mr High Level Contact,' I said, ‘I want you to tell Bob Stuhl something else.'

‘You want me to tell him that you didn't kill his son?'

The momentum of the wheel increased. We crested the top and began to descend, gathering pace. The pendants on the turrets of the mock-medieval castle snapped and cracked like whips. I plunged my hands into my jacket pocket and gripped the butt of the automatic.

‘Masked men came to my house last night,' I said. ‘They stuck a shotgun in my face and threatened to kill me unless I tell the cops I saw Donny Maitland kill Darren Stuhl.'

Behind the lenses of his sunglasses Farrell's face was as unreadable as a Patrick White novel. ‘And you think Bob Stuhl sent them?'

‘I think a grieving father, impatient for justice, might be tempted to take things into his own hands,' I said.

Farrell pondered this, then nodded. ‘Could be,' he said. ‘Are you going to do what they told you?'

‘No, I'm not. And since you have access to Bob Stuhl, I want you to see that he gets that message. If those men come near me or my son, I will kill them without hesitation. Then I'll come and kill him.'

‘Is that right?' Farrell didn't bother to conceal his scepticism at this brave declaration.

We reached the bottom and began to ascend again. I took the automatic out of my pocket and held it casually in my lap, finger curled loosely around the trigger, thumb resting on the hammer. ‘Tell him that this is not an idle threat,' I said.

Farrell's gaze dropped to the gun. He studied it. ‘Where'd you get that?'

‘Won it in a fucking lucky dip,' I said. ‘Never mind where I got it. The point is, I've got it and you're going to tell your pal Bob that I won't hesitate to use it.'

Farrell puffed his cheeks and blew out a long, hard breath. ‘Then I hope you can shoot better than you use your fists.'

‘Only one way to find out.' I thumbed back the hammer and pressed the muzzle into his side. ‘And if this is part of some job you're doing on Maitland, the same goes for you.'

Farrell stiffened, getting it now. ‘Take it easy,' he said. ‘I get the message. You're quite the hairy-arsed individual, aren't you?'

‘When I want to be,' I said. We reached the top. There was nowhere else to go. Slowly uncocking the gun, I slipped it back into my pocket. ‘A little understanding, Frank, that's all I'm asking for.'

‘I'll see that Stuhl gets your message, if that's what you want,' said Farrell. ‘No skin off my nose. But why don't you just go to the cops, tell them you're being stood over?'

‘Let's just say I'm covering my bases.' I patted my pocket.

The ride was ending. Our cage dropped to the loading step and lurched to a halt. The bar came up and we stepped back onto terra firma. A little firmer, I felt, than before we boarded. We walked towards the main gate.

‘Very cinematic,' said Farrell, folding his sunglasses. ‘The only thing missing was Orson Welles and a zither.'

‘Make no mistake,' I said. ‘I'm in deadly earnest.'

He held his hands up in a mollifying gesture. ‘I was wondering about that gun,' he said. ‘Compact automatic, chrome slide. Looks a lot like Darren's yuppie toy.'

‘So what?' I said. ‘There must be thousands of guns like this.'

‘But it's an interesting coincidence, isn't it? Did you know that Darren's gun was never found? Word is, the cops think whoever killed him must have taken it.'

‘Well I didn't kill him,' I said. ‘And I didn't take his gun.' I now understood why Voigt and Webb lit up when I mentioned it.

‘But you were at Maitland's office last night. And Maitland just happened to have a gun there. This wouldn't be the same one, by any chance?'

We'd reached the pinball arcade just inside the entrance. Red and Tarquin saw us passing and dashed out to block our path. Tarquin brandished an inflatable plastic baseball bat. ‘This is a hold-up,' said Red. ‘Give us more money.'

Farrell sidestepped him and continued towards the exit. ‘I'm sure Bob'll be very interested in everything you've told me,' he said.

The implication of Farrell's words hit me like a locomotive. As my head swivelled to watch him go, my mouth dropped wide open. It was a wonder nobody stuck a ping-pong ball in it.

Tarquin, meanwhile, was pummelling me with his inflatable cudgel and Red was thrusting forth an imploring palm. ‘Donkey Kong ate all our money,' he explained. I peeled off fresh cash, recommended the Whip and allowed gravity to draw me down the slope to St Kilda pier. My mouth was now closed but my brain was spinning faster than a fairyfloss machine.

The water beneath the pier deepened from shimmering transparency to impenetrable jade. I walked its length, out past the Victorian pavilion where the concrete pilings ended and the rock groyne threw its protective arm around the yacht marina. Roller-bladers zipped past, mobile phones clutched to their ears. Old Greek men sat on Eskys, jigging for squid with long rods and barbed lures. ‘Penguin Viewing Cruises', said a sign on the railing. ‘Japanese Spoken'.

Clever penguins, I thought. A damned sight more intelligent than me. When I arrived at Luna Park, I was merely terrorised. Now I was catatonic. And this time, it was all my own fault.

Donny said he got the pistol from a crim who didn't need it. I now realised that he'd been finessing the point. By Donny's lights, Darren Stuhl was born into a criminal class. The fact that he was also a thug only confirmed the definition. And Darren didn't need the gun because he was dead. So did getting it mean taking it? If so, when had that happened? And how? And why?

Whatever the answers to those questions, there was one thing I did know for sure. Nothing could have been better calculated to inflame Bob Stuhl's belief that Donny Maitland killed his son than what I had just done. Not only had I blithely brandished a missing item of evidence which linked Donny directly to Darren at the time of his death, I'd found exactly the right messenger to convey that connection to Darren's vengeful father.

I began to pick my way across the rocks of the breakwater, the hollow of my head echoing with the rattle of rigging against the masts of the yachts in the marina. Gulls swooped and bickered. A cluster of English backpackers had stripped off their tops and were sunning themselves in the lee of the wind, their skin ghostly white against the blueblack of the granite boulders.

Bob Stuhl's minions had given me a week. Would Donny last that long? If Big Bob was willing to use terror tactics at the investigation stage, how far would he go as Director of Private Prosecutions? What penalty would he feel entitled to exact?

My hands were in my jacket pockets. One was closed around the butt of the automatic. The other fingered the bullets. I knew better than to walk around with a loaded gun. Test-firing the automatic was one thing, I'd concluded as I tossed and turned through the night, but using it was another. The state I was in, lunging for it nervously every time a shadow crossed my windowpane, I was more likely to shoot Red than to fend off a posse of professional toughs.

My objective in showing the automatic to Farrell was deterrence. After that my plan was to throw it into the sea. Near the end of the breakwater, I found a sheltered spot between two large boulders. Squatting at the water's edge, I marked a suitable place in the deep green of the marina channel and slipped the pistol from my pocket.

Donny had sworn that he hadn't killed Darren Stuhl. But real doubts now hung over that assertion. Could he have been lying? A version of the events at the market that morning swam before me. Darren waving his gun in Donny's face. Donny somehow getting the better of him. Donny taking Darren's gun, then pulverising his body to escape detection. But why bother? Why not just plead self-defence? Unless, in the heat of the moment, Donny's low opinion of the law's claims to impartiality had got the better of him.

The breeze was cool at the water's edge and I hunched deeper into my hiking jacket, the gun pressed between my palms. The wind pushed a row of triangular sails over the horizon, then pushed them back again. The wake of a passing speedboat slapped the rocks by my feet. Still I squatted there, thinking.

Donny had promised to see me right. But how did he propose to deliver on that assurance? Was it possible that I was putting myself and Red at risk on the basis of a misplaced trust? Donny Maitland was a good man yet he was unpredictable. I needed to talk to him again. Soon. I put the pistol back in my pocket and walked back along the breakwater to the pavilion. There was a payphone inside.

Heather answered the Maitland Transport number. ‘Donny's gone to collect the truck,' she said. ‘The police have finished with it at last. And he's decided to give up this union nonsense, so we can finally get back to business.'

‘Can you let him know that I need to speak with him urgently?'

‘It's not about the money, is it? We'll have a problem paying it back. Donny wasted most of it on office equipment and there's been a fire at his campaign headquarters, whatever he calls it. I don't think he'd got around to insuring it yet.'

Insurance. Even when you take it out, you're never entirely sure you're covered. There's always some risk you haven't considered, some caveat you've failed to read.

I told her I'd square the money with the ministry but I still needed to see Donny. Then I got off the line before she could ask me if I was alone. The answer this time was yes. Very much alone.

I walked back up the hill to the rictus mouth of Luna Park. The boys had long exhausted their funding and were waiting with bored impatience. ‘You said two o'clock,' whined Tarquin. ‘It's already ten past three.'

‘I was thinking,' I said. ‘You should try it.'

‘I'm hungry,' Red remarked.

We went down the road to the Hebrew bakeries on Acland Street and I fed them to bursting with pastries. By the time we'd finished eating, the sun was losing its lustre and the pleasures of St Kilda were exhausted. We drove back to Fitzroy and I checked the messages on the machine.

Donny hadn't called but Angelo Agnelli had. The preselection process was now a week old and it was time for our first clandestine conference at the Gardenview Mews motel. The agreed place, as Angelo's message gnomically described it. Six o'clock.