White Dog (15 page)

Costello blinked twice, shook his head. ‘Well, there’s that shit where you all put your hands on the glass. What’s it called?’

‘A seance.’ How had I missed the signals? The tenses?

‘Two in the head in a motel up there near the SA border,’ he said. ‘Some nothing shithole. Early ’95, February, I think. No one charged to the moment, far as I hear.’

Last port of call, he was seeing me to the door. ‘Any idea?’ I said.

‘Mate, stuff like that I’ve got no ideas. That’s the reason I’m still here.’

In the street, the storm was over, clouds blown away, the light neon blue and dying. I walked up King Street against the ebbing tide of sombre-suited workers, people waiting at home for the lucky ones, people to kiss at the front door, small ones to pick up and hug, smell the clean and innocent skin and hair of the newly bathed and be for an instant clean and innocent too.

No chance of that for me.

At length, I came to Carrigan’s Lane and parked across from the office, beside the clothing factory. It had a soul once – the women and girls who worked in it and came out on smoko and at lunch to stand on the pavement, lean against the brick wall, suck on cigarettes. There was always giggling, they laughed a lot and did quick mocking pieces of theatre that were obviously imitations of people in authority. They sang snatches of pop songs, sometimes short solos, often operatic. The young women gave the older ones cheek, lots of cheek, in return they got gestures of disdain, hand and head and whole upper body eloquent, and joking threats of violence. Sometimes there would be real aggression between the younger ones, some grudge taking fire, but older peacemakers stepped in, quick to pour scorn on both parties.

In the first years across the street, in the tailor’s shop, I could stand at the window and watch all that. I was watching on the last day. They came out with their final paypackets, stood around, young, old, no laughing, no singing. They touched, there was hugging, quick kisses, they told each other it wasn’t goodbye. Some came out of the door and could not bear it, walked, just a hand raised and a
ciao
.

These thoughts were in my mind when someone knocked on the car window next to my head.

I started, heart jumping, looked up, bade the window come down.

‘Where’d you get this car?’ said Kelvin McCoy. ‘Property of some poor bastard gone to jail because of your incompetence?’

‘Good afternoon,’ I said. ‘I’m not averse to being paid in kind. You once offered me one of your creations. A steam-rollered bunny pasted on a field of used condoms. I recall it vividly. In nightmares.’

‘Big mistake, knocking that back, Jack,’ he said. ‘Typical misjudgment. Fifty-eight grand at auction last year.’

I motioned for him to move away from the door and got out, got a full view of the man. McCoy’s postbox-like upper body was draped in layers of textiles, four or five of them, including what appeared to be a sleeping bag and an old fishing net.

‘Any pleasure at profiting from the sale of the disgusting object,’ I said, ‘would have been offset by the disgrace of being known to own it.’

McCoy looked me up and down in a theatrical way. ‘In the suits a lot these days. I’d stick to the carpentry, mate. Never were can’t make a comeback.’

‘Speaking of style,’ I said, sniffing, ‘is that Trawlerman’s Armpit aftershave? If not, I suggest you check the net you’re wearing for overlooked catch. Fish dead for a month or so, possibly longer.’

We thrust, no parrying, and parted. I was at my door, when McCoy shouted, ‘I’m having a party Friday night. Don’t come.’

I went inside and, in the back room, the nominal kitchen, made a pot with loose tea bought from a terrifyingly correct shop in Brunswick Street. The bleached-looking owners wore loose garments that were probably made from pulped
Age
Culture sections.

I waited for a decent time, and, from a height, filled the lovely china cup given to me by Isabel. I had brought it here from my old office, a relic of the time when I was a respectable person. If the roof fell in now, if some disaster pulverised the place, chips of this cup would quite wrongly tell an archaeologist that on this site there was once civilised life.

Precious vessel in hand, I went to the front window, sipped, looked at the wet tarmac, the shining cobbles, at the two lines of swooping writing on the wall above the front door of McCoy’s atelier.

Guy de Paris
Garments of Distinction

The lettering was so faded that you had to know what it said to read it. In the last light, I thought about what to make of Janene Ballich and the ripples from her. The man who’d parked beside me was saying that she was connected with Mickey Franklin in a way that mattered.

A hooker and her ambitious pimp – she was missing so long she had to be dead, he was dead. And Katelyn Feehan aka Mandy Randy? Where was she? Like Janene, she was recruited from the Officers’ Club by Wayne Dilthey to join his catering corps ministering to the needs of the rich.

The rich. Mickey Franklin and the rich, Mickey and the Massianis, Mickey and Anthony Kendall Haig and Charles Hartfield and Bernard Paech.

Did Sophie Longmore, Mickey’s last screw, know anything about these people? Not likely. They went back too far and Mickey wouldn’t have talked about them. Where was Sophie? Gone somewhere. I’d probably been told, hadn’t paid attention.

I went to the table and rang Sarah Longmore’s mobile.

‘Yes,’ she said, more command than greeting.

‘Jack Irish.’

‘The journos have got this number,’ she said. ‘It’s supposed to be silent, I’ve had two slimes, they start out trying to ingratiate …’

‘Where are you?’ I said.

‘At work. At what I choose to call work. I’m about to leave.’

‘I’d like to have some of your time.’

‘You can have all my time if you’re prepared to be hounded by fucking tabloid scumbags and television thugs. They followed me into the police station today when I went to sign the bail book. The cops had to kick them out.’

‘That’s trying,’ I said. ‘They don’t have work staked out?’

‘Not yet. I’m taking considerable pains to see that they don’t.’

‘There tomorrow? I could come around.’

‘All day. From around ten.’

A silence and then she said, ‘Or we could do it today. Have a drink somewhere. Whatever.’

The ethics of an after-hours drink with a client. What ethics? I’d had a during-hours beer with her. Anyway, she wasn’t my client, I was Cyril Wootton’s hireling. And even if she were, some lawyers spent large parts of their after-hours drinking with their clients, the bigger the client, the more after-hours drinking.

‘That would be helpful,’ I said. ‘Save time.’

‘I’m a bit wary of public places,’ she said.

I hesitated only for a moment. ‘We could meet at my place,’ I said. ‘It’s not far out of your way.’

Sarah didn’t hesitate at all. ‘Fine. Where is it?’

I gave her directions, then made haste to get home and inflict some order on the place. At least it was clean, courtesy of a recent purge. The bell rang when I’d got the fire going well and was stuffing old newspapers into the box seat under the sitting-room window. I went down and opened the door.

She was in jeans and a short leather jacket, tiny drops of water in her finger-combed hair. A sexy look, it made me nervous.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling awkward. I haven’t pushed you into this, have I?’

‘I thought it was my suggestion?’ Behind her, I could see the rain drifting like net curtain across the streetlight on the edge of the park.

‘Made under duress.’

‘Come in. I haven’t got any German beer, just Cooper’s.’

‘Cooper’s is not just.’

When I came in with the beer, she was standing in front of the fire. ‘A very welcoming room, Mr Irish. Is there what would once have been a Mrs Irish? Or similar?’

I shook my head, gave her a big glass, a bottle of beer in it. ‘Neither. I’ve got names I need to ask you about.’

‘Ask.’

I didn’t know whether to stand or sit. I stood on the other side of the fire. ‘David Massiani.’

‘Met once. All smiles and arm-punching. When David’d gone, Mickey said, you’ll never meet a more insanely treacherous cunt. Mickey worked for the Massianis once, you know that?’

‘I do. That’s all?’

‘Yes. May I smoke?’

‘This room’s no stranger to smoke.’ That was putting it mildly.

She took the Camel packet from an inside pocket, plucked one. I pulled a splinter from a piece of firewood, lit it and offered. She put the cigarette in her mouth, came closer, tilted her head back, looked at me though the flame, close, drew.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You know how to live off the land here.’

‘We get by,’ I said. ‘Subsistence living. Grow our own truffles, force-feed the geese. In the evenings, we make our own amusement.’

She laughed, a laugh seen in her eyes. How was it that you always knew whether people were really amused? Why was I so pleased to have made her laugh?

I drank a good bit of the Cooper’s and wiped my lips. ‘Anthony Kendall Haig,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

There was something more than affirmation in her voice. She smoked, blew the grey stream at the fire, it was claimed by the updraught. This fireplace sucked like no other fire chamber I had known. It was one of the most important survivors of the explosion that sent the building’s roof into the North Fitzroy sky, tiny pieces falling on the football oval, on St George’s Road, on the bowling greens. Pieces of my dwelling fell on the tennis court where I once played Drew Greer for almost three hours, and lost.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘Mickey once worked for him too. In Brisbane. He’s an interesting man. Sophie said he was the money behind Seaton Square. There was some argument going on between him and Mickey, I think. You’ll have to ask her.’

‘I’d like to ask her lots of things. Your father promised to arrange it. Can you put me in touch?’

‘I’ll ring her.’

‘Why’s Haig interesting?’

She had some beer, smoked, looking at the fire. ‘He’s got this rough exterior, left school at fourteen, a self-made man. Then you find out he can talk about art, history, music. Unusual person.’

I waited, admiring her cheekbones. ‘And?’

‘I slept with him,’ she said.

‘During the Mickey affair?’

‘Yes. Just a fling.’

‘Did Mickey know?’

‘No. We were on the rocks, it was right at the end. The night I had the fight over the parking space, that’s the night I met him. He came to dinner at Mickey’s.’

I tried the names Charles Hartfield and Bernard Paech. No, she said.

‘Gary Webber. An artist. I understand you attacked him.’

Sarah closed her eyes. ‘Oh fuck,’ she said, calm voice, ‘that’s from my father, isn’t it?’

‘We don’t want it going off in our face in court,’ I said.

She drank. ‘I was about sixteen, trying to hang out with this bunch of painters. I thought they were so cool, they had this outlaw artist air, they were all drop-outs from something, school, art school. And Gary Webber, he was the coolest. One night, I went to the studio, upstairs in Smith Street, it was late, and three of them started pushing me around, they were off their brains. I thought it was a joke. You play along. I played along.’

Sarah threw her cigarette into the fire. ‘Anyway,’ she said, she sounded as if she wanted to end the story, ‘I was just a silly kid trying to pass myself off as street smart. I’d only had sex once before that night. I should still have been at school.’

‘What?’ I said.

Something between smiling and showing pain, dentists would know the facial movement.

‘They raped me,’ she said. ‘It went on and on and when I thought it was over, I was lying there, Gary Webber came in. He was totally bombed and he wanted his turn. I tried to fight him and he punched me in the chest a few times, hard, in my stomach too, he was dancing around like a boxer, he had his hands up, and then he was going to hit me in the face. I was against this counter thing and he took a step back, ready to hit me. There was a full wine bottle and I got my hands on it and I hit him first. I kept hitting him with it until it broke.’

Her voice, the small sag of her shoulders, touched me. I believed her and I felt an urge to put out a hand and say that. Instead I said, ‘I understood that you claimed to have no memory of what happened. Is this the newly recovered version?’

She looked at me, not the child eyes I’d seen at our first meeting: sad, grown-up. She put her glass on the mantelpiece.

‘Goodnight, Mr Irish,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the beer.’

She walked for the door. I said nothing, felt a clenched fist in my stomach. This had been a bad idea, I had made it worse.

The door was difficult to open from the inside, there was play in the doorknob, the small screws worked themselves loose, they needed tightening from time to time. She twisted the knob, and, without turning her head, anxiety in her voice, said, ‘Can you let me out?’

I crossed the room, reached around her, put my hand on the doorknob, pushed, turned, the tongue moved enough. I pulled the door open a crack.

‘I keep meaning to fix the damn thing,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you down the stairs.’

She was still, we were close, I could feel the electricity in her. She pushed the door closed, spoke without turning.

‘I wanted to die after that night,’ she said, voice thin. ‘Three men treated me like a toy. They did anything they wanted to. Then I almost killed someone. I would have killed him, I didn’t care. So if I’d been offered surgery to take that night out of my brain, I would have said yes, yes, yes. Yes, please.’

Her forehead was against the door. I was looking at the nape of her neck, the clean dark hairs in the soft and pale hollow.

‘I couldn’t speak about what had happened,’ she said. ‘Not to anyone. I didn’t have the words for it. So if I said I didn’t remember, then I didn’t have to speak about it.’

A silence, the crackling of the fire, the wash of rain on the roof, the swallowings in the downpipes.

‘I was just a young girl,’ she said. ‘Can you understand, Jack?’