The Big Ask (25 page)

I held the telephone so tight my fist began to tremble. ‘And what's he gunna say when I tell him that he got the wrong man, that you're the one who killed his son?' I demanded.

A sucking came down the line, a sharp intake of air. ‘Well, well, well,' said Farrell. ‘I wondered if Maitland told you what he saw. Dumb of him not to tell the cops, wasn't it? But he didn't and that's the main thing. Anything he said is hearsay. And nobody's going to take your word against mine, least of all Bob Stuhl.'

‘That won't stop me trying,' I slurred.

‘Get real, Whelan,' said Farrell. ‘Drunk or sober, nobody's going to believe you. You were Maitland's crony. And you were the one uttering threats against Darren. I was the trusty babysitter. I'd been hauling that psychotic bastard out of scraps for years.'

My hand found the neck of the whiskey bottle. I poured another slug down my throat. I was scarcely tasting it any more. ‘Until one day you got fed up, eh?'

Farrell gave a dry chuckle. ‘You can relate to that, can't you? Darren was riding for a fall. First he stuck his gun in Maitland's face. Then, when I tried to hose him down, he did the same to me. I made my displeasure known. Hit him harder than I intended and accidently put the prick out of his misery.'

‘Then set Donny up to take the blame.'

‘You've seen how Bob Stuhl works, so you'll appreciate how keen I was that he didn't find out it was me,' he said. ‘Maitland just happened to be the most likely culprit.'

‘You arsehole,' I fumed. ‘I don't give a fuck about what you did to Darren Stuhl. But Donny was innocent and he's dead because of you.'

‘Because of you, too,' Farrell reminded me. ‘Don't forget that. The gun was the clincher. You shouldn't have given it back to him, should you? Get off your high horse, Whelan. It'd be a brave man indeed who decided to make an issue of this. Are you a brave man, Murray?'

Farrell's tone was genial but the note of menace was unambiguous. I held the phone to my ear, listening to his breath, wondering how to answer his question.

‘It's the way things are,' said Farrell into the silence. ‘And there's nothing that you can do about it.'

He hung up. I was glad he did. I was beginning to see his point of view. We live in a dog-eat-dog world. And sometimes there just aren't enough dogs to go around.

I went back to the bottle, mired in the realisation that Farrell was so right that he didn't even have to pay me the courtesy of duplicity. He could come right out and rub my nose in it. I had no credibility with the cops. My chances of getting to Bob Stuhl were zero. If I tried, I risked putting myself back in danger. It stuck in my craw to admit it, but there was sweet fuck all that I could do.

The booze eventually did its job and I crashed out, fully dressed, seething with self-contempt and impotent rage, on top of the bedclothes.

The next voice I heard was not my own. It was Red's. He was ringing from Geordie's place to inform me of his plans for the rest of the day. The gang was going to the movies:
Terminator 2
.

My alarm-radio said it was eleven o'clock. I dosed myself with caffeine and aspirin, shaved and showered, ironed a shirt and eased myself into my Hugo Boss. At 12.30, wretched but mending, I crept into the restaurant at the National Gallery.

The place was full of Taiwanese tourists bustling about in polyester leisurewear. Lyndal and Ayisha were sitting at a table with a view of the sculpture garden, picking at salads. Both were power-dressed. Not the salads, the women. The elegant silk scarf at Ayisha's throat was just bright enough to emphasise her dark Levantine beauty without undercutting her masters degree in public administration. Lyndal was in a plum-coloured pants-suit. Her businesslike demeanour reminded me how much I longed for her community welfare services, to fall into her safety net.

I steered my way through the Taipei ramblers and announced my arrival by clearing my throat and straightening my tie. Not the one Red had given me. That was at home, locked in a sound-proof container. I'd chosen my Versace, teal with orange-yellow flecks, in the hope that it might deflect attention from my ravaged eyes.

But there was no fooling Ayisha. ‘Night on the tiles, Murray?' she said, bouncing her generous eyebrows in a salacious manner.

‘I wish,' I sighed. ‘A touch of the flu.'

‘Poor dear,' said Lyndal sweetly. ‘We can do this later, if you're not up to it. A couple of weeks, say?'

Cute, considering the reason for our meeting was only eight days away. ‘Angelo would never forgive me,' I said, sitting down. ‘He's paying me very good money to come here and lie to you.'

‘How much?' said Ayisha eagerly.

She reached for their lunchtime bottle of chardonnay, offering me a glass. I shook my head, not up to it, and turned to signal for a coffee. Failing to get the waiter's attention, I settled for the wine. It couldn't make me feel any worse.

‘Let's just say I negotiated a generous redundancy package,' I said. ‘And that for purposes of public consumption, my decision to run came as a complete shock to my employer. Just as your surprise decision, Lyndal, was no doubt prompted by a firm conviction that Melbourne Upper is ready to rally to the feminist standard.'

Lyndal speared a cherry tomato. ‘I wasn't going to sit around forever, waiting for the faction bosses to tap me on the shoulder to tell me, it's your turn now, girlie.'

‘Particularly since there'll be a party room spill after the election,' I said. ‘And Angelo, one of the old guard, tarred with the brush of failure, will probably be consigned to the backbench. There's not much kudos in being an opposition backbencher's constituency assistant.'

‘None at all,' agreed Lyndal. ‘But after we go down in the state election, the national office will start to worry about the next federal poll and begin looking for new blood.'

I gave a low, admiring whistle. ‘A federal seat? You're aiming high.'

‘And why not? I couldn't do worse than some of the fools already in Canberra. But I'll only get noticed if I make a decent showing in Melbourne Upper. Which I intend to do.'

‘Coming off a cold start?' I said. ‘Without factional support? Against an incumbent backed by the machine?'

‘The machine's short a cog,' interjected Ayisha. ‘Ange couldn't find Melbourne Upper in the street directory without his electorate officer to tell him the page number. You of all people ought to know that.'

‘The fact that Lyndal's job is vacant is a plus for Angelo, not a minus,' I pointed out. ‘He can put it up for auction, dangle it in front of twenty different interest groups in exchange for their support. What can you offer?'

‘Not enough to buy me the seat, I admit,' said Lyndal. ‘But that's not my objective. All I want is a creditable performance and a decent second-placing. Show some form and I might qualify for a better starting position in a higher stakes race.'

Now we were getting down to it. ‘So what do you reckon you'll get in the first round of votes?' I plucked a figure from the air, testing her confidence level. ‘Thirty per cent?'

‘About that,' she shrugged nonchalantly. Meaning she was thinking higher. And straw-polling was her professional speciality. So maybe closer to 40 per cent. ‘And you'll get, what, 10 per cent?'

‘Fifteen,' I said. My current guesstimate was closer to eight.

She looked at me sceptically. ‘Okay, so there's your fifteen, plus my thirty, plus the Save Our Train's three. That's 48 per cent. Angelo gets the other fifty-two. And since a majority of the central panel is already committed to him, he's over the line in the first ballot. Even taking into account shrinkage, slippage, leakage and drift.'

God, this was great. Lyndal talked numbers like some women talked dirty.

‘First ballot, second ballot, whichever way you slice it,' I said. ‘Angelo's going to win.'

Of course these projections were so rubbery they could be dribbled like a basketball and shot through any hoop in sight. The entire system was constructed so that a voter could look at least two candidates in the eye and truthfully swear to have voted for him. Or, less often, her.

Ayisha pounced. ‘You're saying that Angelo doesn't really need your preferences. So why not sling them to Lyndal. Long as Ange wins, your conscience'll be clear.'

‘What's my conscience got to do with it?' I said. It was a strange word to hear on the lips of a member of the Labor Party. ‘I've got a clear-cut deal with Angelo. What can you offer that would induce me to break it?'

‘Ayisha,' said Lyndal, ‘would you mind waiting for me outside?'

Ayisha smirked knowingly, drained her glass and stood up. ‘I'll be in the gift shop,' she said.

We waited until she'd gone, eyeing each other with wary amusement. ‘Your campaign manager's very keen,' I said.

‘And capable. She'd make a good member of parliament, don't you think?' It sounded like the girls were laying some pipe.

‘You too,' I said. ‘If I hadn't already made a commitment to Angelo...'

‘Yeah, yeah,' she laughed. ‘That's what they all say.' She scrutinised my face. Despite my tie, the effects of recent events must have been evident. ‘Are you okay?'

I cocked my head towards the door. ‘If you think I look bad, you haven't seen the abstract expressionists.'

We went into the gallery proper and strolled among the pictures, side by side. As we warmed ourselves in front of a Rothko, she slipped her arm through mine. ‘We both know you didn't come here today to propose a preference swap,' she said. ‘So why are you here?'

‘I think you know that,' I said.

‘You want to frot me in a telephone booth?'

‘You were tempted. Don't deny it.'

‘A girl likes to be romanced. Not have her bones jumped when she's half-tanked and keying herself up to quit her job.'

‘Is that why you agreed to meet? So you could tell me that another try wouldn't be unwelcome.'

‘Possibly,' she said. ‘Depends how it's done.'

‘So I shouldn't shove you against that Jasper Johns and stick my tongue down your throat?'

‘Not unless you fancy a swift kick in the Jackson Pollocks.'

‘So it's dinner at Florentinos, candlelight, champagne?'

‘That'd do for a start. Not until after the ballot, of course.'

‘What if I can't wait that long?'

‘Do what you usually do.'

‘The popcorn girl at the Wangaratta drive-in?'

‘Don't push it, buster.'

She handed me one of her business cards, the electorate officer stuff crossed out and her phone numbers handwritten on the back, home and mobile. ‘I hope you're feeling better soon.'

‘I hope I'm feeling you soon.'

‘That depends on how you play your cards,' she said.

Turning on her heels, she proceeded briskly towards the gift shop. As I watched her go, I noticed a large painting in the contemporary Australian section. It depicted a red-eyed man with his hands sunk into the pockets of his coat. He was standing on a blasted plain beside a burning city while brimstone rained from the sky. A sturdy and independent dog was his only companion.

I knew how he felt.

All my contacts, all my skills, were useless. Donny's death cast a pall, but it was one in whose shadow I had no choice but to keep living. Like some poor fucking Bulgarian in a polluted shithole of a industrial town, I trudged each day to the coalface knowing no other way of life. In my case, the mineshaft was a card table and my pick was a telephone. And it was the press that spewed out the degraded crap that sustained the commerce of our city.

Two days after my meeting with Lyndal, the
Sun
led with one of its perennial stories about factional brawling in the Labor Party. Although the editorial line was predictable, certain facts resonated with whispers I'd been hearing on the grapevine. I spent the day on the dog and bone and found nothing but confirmation of the story. The tectonic plates were shifting, ructions were brewing, long-forged alliances were going weak at the welds. Factional deals were coming unglued faster than discount-store furniture.

Mid-afternoon I got a call from Angelo's secretary. ‘He said same time, same place, usual arrangements,' she said. ‘Whatever that means.'

It meant the Gardenview Mews. Angelo prowled the motel room like a caged lion as he grilled me about my progress with Lyndal on the preference swap offer.

‘She's taking it under advisement,' I told him. ‘But I'm optimistic. I think my chances are good.'

It was what he wanted to hear. I moved the topic to the situation at the centre. ‘Heavy seas,' he said, making it sound more like a meteorological phenomenon than a committee of union bosses and party apparatchiks. ‘Although I think I can ride out the storm.'

So much for the shipping news. I left him sitting on the edge of the bed, running up my phone bill. He could call Brazil for all I cared. My easy-money termination pay had finally appeared in the electronic coffers of my bank account.

I walked home and cooked dinner for Red. Grilled steak and baked vegetables. I didn't have much of an appetite but Red was happy to take up the slack. In little more than a week, I told him, my current work arrangements would be at an end. It was time to equip the corporate headquarters of Murray Whelan & Associates
.

The next morning, Saturday, we went shopping. My deputy director of Technical Support recommended a 386 with one meg of ram. ‘State of the art,' he assured me. ‘Fully upgradable.'

While we were at it, we bought a printer, a pile of games discs and a book called
DOS for Idiots
. The computer set-up cost me almost three grand. A fax machine set me back another nine hundred dollars. Inevitably, I'd have to get myself a mobile phone, join the wankers. But I wasn't quite ready for that yet. The 99-memory Motorola was priced at twelve hundred dollars. The more memory the better, I figured. Preferably something with a spanner-gripping facility.