The Big Whatever (31 page)

I just looked at him.

He went on, “You should also be aware that any plans you may have for the exploitation of certain events in which my sister
may have been involved, however innocently, whether for print publication in the form of a novel or nonfiction work authored by you or as told to a third party, or as the subject matter of a motion picture, radio drama, television play, or any other media format, will be energetically contested by us.”

I looked at Denise. “Is he for real?”

Her smile was gone. “All right, Richard, that's
enough
.” She turned back to me. “That probably sounded more hostile than it was meant to be.”

I felt way behind the play. I looked at Lobby. He shrugged. I took a sip of my beer. “What
do
you want then,” I said to Denise.

The brother answered. “No, the question here is what do
you
want?”

“What I said. I want to get what he owes me.”

Denise said, “And, I imagine, you'd want to get even?”

“I want the money. That's all. But for you two,” I pointed to Denise and then Richard, “money is not that big a deal, right? Got that already. What you want is—”

“Story rights,” said Denise. “A novel first, then later a film. If we” – a light nod in Richard's direction – “can get the finance.” She reached over and touched my hand again. “It's early, and I don't want to get ahead of myself. But I'd like you to be involved.” She smiled again.

There was an H. Messenger in the Echuca phone book, the only listing for that surname. I rang the number first thing in the morning – no answer – and again in the afternoon. This time a weary, older-sounding woman picked up. Yes, she was Vic's mother. Helen. No, she didn't know where he was. Who was I? A friend of Vic's friend Max, I told her. Oh yes, the funny one. I didn't press her on what particular sense of the word “funny” she meant. I told her I needed to reach Vic.

“He shaved his head,” she said. “Poor boy, he was no oil painting,
with
hair.” She laughed. “He chants with that group of head shrinkers.”

“Who's that?”

“The Harry Krishnas.”

“In Melbourne?”

“Brisbane, last I heard.”

“What about Vic's friend, Mark?

A long pause. “Mark?”

“Yes.”

Another pause, then, “The young chap who disappeared?”

My turn to pause. “I hadn't heard that,” I said.

“Vic told me. Mark was a nice boy, really. I would've jumped him, if I was few years younger.”

“I . . .
What
?”

“Never mind.”

“I . . . Sorry, where were we?”

“Caught you off guard, did I?”

“A bit. When did Mark . . . disappear?”

“Well,” she sighed, “I last saw Victor three months ago. So about six months before that, I suppose.”

“Did Vic happen to mention anything about Max? I mean, recent news about him?”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Bill Glasheen.”

“Oh.”

“Yes?”

“Victor mentioned you.”

“Really? Did he leave a message?”

“Wouldn't you like to know? Where are you ringing from?”

“Melbourne.”

“Oh.” She went silent for a few beats. “How old are you?”

“What's that got to do with it?”

She laughed. “Mystery man, huh? Well, I'm game. If you're up Echuca way, give me a call.”

“You've caught me off guard again.”

She laughed throatily, said, “Well, see ya sometime, maybe,” and hung up.

That evening I told Denise about my conversation with Helen
Messenger.

“Isn't she a
trip
?” she said. “Vic brought her to a couple of Carlton parties. She fitted right in. Toking joints and whatnot. Everyone loved her. Did she have anything for you?”

“Not really. If I asked her anything she'd change the subject, answer in a flirty way.”

“She's no fool.”

“Guess not. She told me Mark had disappeared. Like he was dead.”

“Mark?”

“Vic's mate. The kid who made the speed. ‘The Boy Wonder' in the book.”

She shook her head. “Never knew him.”

“You must've known Vic.”

“He was more Max's mate. We never buddied up particularly. But yeah, I knew him, of course.”

We were at the Italian Waiters Club. Plates of pasta and mugs of red wine in front of us. It was crowded and noisy. We'd ended up halfway to being pals the previous night, especially once brother Richard had shot through. We'd stayed in the pub for another hour while Denise and Lobby filled me in on the actual events before and during the Moratorium, as well as the aftermath. Their versions of it, anyway.

This is how they'd laid it out to me: Yes, there were armed robs, but they'd been Stan and Jimmy's thing. Max might have been involved in the post office robbery, but with Max, who knew for sure?

Cathy had been more involved, maybe even masterminded the Moratorium rip, the idea of the simultaneous robberies, the explosion. Denise had remained mostly on the fringes. She
had
tried to film the robbery, the way Max wrote it up, more or less. She hadn't held a gun though, she said. And had never wanted any part of the take. She wanted the story, she said.

So Denise had come through the shenanigans – the drugs, the robberies, the Moratorium Day knockover, the escape, the crash, the ensuing police trouble, the international notoriety – more or
less clean. As Bob Gould had told me, the family put her in a nice private hospital, got her a top-notch lawyer, plenty of postponements on the court appearances. By then she had a folder full of sympathetic psych assessments.

Despite the way Max had written it up, Denise had only ever dabbled in the hard drugs. It was just a case of artistic literary curiosity gone wrong. She'd gravitated too close to her subject, lost her objectivity, been swayed towards the gang's perverse values. A problem of being too young, too open, too fearless even. But she was not a criminal, not really.

That was the line her lawyers took, and by the time Denise fronted court she looked good, acted remorseful, was committed to performing social good, et cetera et cetera. Even the cops were speaking up for her. The end result was a short stretch, all things considered, and early parole.

She'd come out of it all as something of a celebrity. But after the ill-advised
Women's Weekly
interview she'd prudently kept her head down. Now her parole was over – and she really
had
always wanted to write a book, make films and such. With brother Richard being a lawyer, and there being a bunch of new government grants for filmmakers in the pipeline, this was the moment. Finish the novel, capitalize on the notoriety, get the funding to make a feature film.

“So what do you actually want me for?” I'd asked.

At which she smiled and grasped my hand again, and said, “The inside story. Authentic background. Colour and detail.”

“That's bullshit,” I said. “You can get that authentic stuff anywhere. Or just make it up.”

She'd hummed and hawed a bit before coughing up the truth.

“I need a signed and witnessed release from Max. Even though the book was pulped, the fact it once existed might be seen as evidence of his rights to the story. Of course, I've got just as much right to the story, but if the film did get up, and if any money came out of it, Max could make legal trouble later on. Investors will want that settled before they commit.”

“Right,” I said. “So you need Max to sign a paper?”

“But I have to find him first,” she said. “Just like you do.”

We'd split on okay terms, agreeing to talk things through the next day, so here we were at the Waiters Club.

“That character in the book, ‘the Captain,' did you know him?” I said.

She shook her head slowly. “He was a mysterious off-stage presence. Stan and Jimmy might've known him. Cathy too. But I never did.”

“Any idea of his real name?”

She slumped back in her chair. “I didn't want to know. I got the idea he was . . . I'm not sure what. Untrustworthy? The men liked him well enough, the women less so. Not a brute or anything. Good manners. But creepy.”

“Do you buy that stuff about Vietnam and the refined smack?'

“Well, it's true it used to be very scarce. Now it's everywhere.”

“But he wasn't known as the Captain in real life, right?” I said.

She looked at me cautiously. “No, he wasn't.”

“What did they call him, then?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do
you
think? You have an idea, obviously.”

“I think it's a bloke who used to be known as the Filthy Blighter.”

She sat up straight. “Yes! The Blighter. That's him. A chum of yours?”

I shook my head and put my hand up. Don't ask.

“How did you get out of it at the end, Denise?”

“How did I jump ship?”

I nodded.

“We left Melbourne after the rip. Pretty much as it's written in Max's book. Most of them were strung out. Road blocks were going up. It was horrible in every way. Max was off his face, even more than he describes. Mandies, pot, grog. Muttering loony stuff to himself the whole time.

“I knew it was going to end badly. It had to. I figured it still
wasn't too late to get out, so I just asked them to let me out. And they did. How Max described
his
bail out? That was me. Stan stopped the car. I got out. Walked a couple of miles to a servo and rang Richard. He came and got me. We went to the police in Melbourne next day, with a lawyer in tow.”

“So you didn't see Max bail out?”

She shook her head. “I heard about the accident later that afternoon. It was all over the news. And as far as I knew, Max, Cathy, Jimmy and Stan had all . . . you know, died together. It was only when I read the book, knew it had to be genuine, that I realised Max must have jumped ship too, sometime after I did.”

“Which was when? That you read the book, I mean.”

“About two months ago. Bob Gould sent it to me. Asked my opinion. How did
you
get it?”

“I found a copy in the glove box of the cab I drive. I started thumbing through it because there was nothing else. Just killing time. That was a week ago.”

“Coincidence?”

I shook my head. “Nah. The other bloke who drives that cab is a Portuguese feller with bugger-all English. The cab owner knows nothing about it. I suppose a passenger might've left it on the back seat, but—”

“But it's written for you. It's written
to
you.”

“In parts, yeah.”

“So someone wanted to make sure you saw it.”

“It's possible,” I said. “It wasn't you, was it?”

She laughed and shook her head. “No. But I'm glad we've made contact now.” She leaned forward and gave my hand another squeeze. “But why leave it in the cab at all?” she continued. “Couldn't they – whoever – have just sent it to you, anonymously?”

“Yeah, well. Not so easy. I keep my address sort of quiet. It
could
just be coincidence, you know. What about the detective in the book, ‘Craig'? He still around?”

“Real name Craig Grossman. He's right out of it, I think. Retired from the force.”

“Max shot him?”

She shook her head. “That's what he wrote. But from what I heard, it wasn't so clear cut. Somehow he got a bullet in the thigh. Could've been from one of his mob, even. But it messed him up, in more ways than one.” She tapped her head three times. “Once the money went up in the inferno, his interest would've pretty much evaporated, I think.”

The place was getting loud. and I was starting to feel the rotgut red. I wanted out of there.

“So what next?” she said.

I saw no reason to be cagey. Or maybe it was the red.

“I'm going bush again. Those hints in the book – I'm going to check them out.”

“Again?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘again.' You mean, you've already been out there?”

“I had an idea Max might be in the north west of the state – New South Wales, I mean. I went out looking last week. But it was a dud. He'd been there, but was long gone. I reckon he decided the no-dope thing was bullshit, went and dug up his package, and by now he's happily shooting it up somewhere. But if there's any money left, I want it.”

“You want company on this trip?”

“You?”