this shit from television.’
Treble.
‘One, double ten. “You and your mate,’’ he says, “Whatta fuck you want here?’’ I’m standing there, it’s fucken freezing, rain’s coming down my neck, can’t stop the peeing, it’s running down my leg, any second Australia’s Most Wanted is showing up for the milk, and some cunt’s got a shotgun in my back. I think, whatta fuck do I want here?’
I said, ‘Shit, wish I’d stayed in Hay.’ Threw. Got a treble.
Barry looked at me, laughed, body-shaking laugh. ‘Wish I’d stayed in fucken Hay,’ he said. ‘You’ve never forgotten that, you bastard. One-sixty. Treble, treble, double.’
Zero. Twenty.
‘Treble, treble, double ten. And then this Land Cruiser, comes down the street, I thought, it’s him, oh fuck, did my quickest hip turn, that’s not too flash I tell you, knock the barrel away with my arm. The prick pulls the trigger, big bang, into the ground, the Land Cruiser, he floors it.’
Barry drank some beer, sighted, threw, just a little explosion of fingers.
One.
‘Double ten,’ he said, didn’t hesitate, plugged it.
‘You might give a bloke a chance,’ I said. ‘So you lost Australia’s Most Wanted?’
‘Nah. While I’m jumping on this dork, my prick’s still hanging out, such as it is, frostbitten, the blokes at the end of the street get him. Turns out to be Australia’s most harmless turd, happens to resemble the real thing. Also drives one of the same fucken tractors, same colour.’
‘Upsetting.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. They offered me counselling but I already fucked her twice. Just went home.’
The barman put his head through the hatch, big head, broken nose, embattled remnants of hair, middle front tooth missing. ‘Had B11 in here Friday,’ he said. ‘Called somethin else now, what is it?’
‘I forget,’ Barry said, showing no interest, looking at his glass. ‘Could be Police Ethics Squad, could be Police Proctology Section. Pace of change’s a bit rapid for me.’
He went over to the board, plucked the darts, went back and put them on the hatch counter. ‘Do something about these fucken things, will you? Like throwing a dead chook at a wall.’
The barman did a bit of coughing. ‘Asking about your mate Moroney.’
‘Major part of their working day, I imagine,’ Barry said. ‘Asking what?’
‘Drinks with. Stuff like that.’
‘Tell em?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Tell Moroney?’
‘What d’ya think?’
‘Done their job then. Mission accomplished.’
The barman frowned, withdrew.
Barry drained his beer, burped loudly, looked at his watch. ‘Christ, got to go. Take a piss first. Hold my dick?’
In the gents, he stood at the stained and odorous urinal, rocking back and forth, while I washed my hands.
‘Any joy on that parking ticket in Prahran?’ I asked.
‘On a hire,’ he said. ‘To a Dean Canetti, one n, two ts, ACT licence, paid with a personal credit card. My bloke ran a little query on him. You want to be careful here.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘He used to be a Fed. Also with the NCA for a bit.’
He found a slip of paper in his shirt pocket. I took it. ‘Point taken. Jellicoe?’
‘Looks like a burg gone wrong. But there’s worries. No signs of struggle and this Jellicoe’s not small. Also, hit just once over the head, then strangled. These things, it’s usually like six, seven, eight hundred blows. VCR’s gone, CD player, but not the wallet. And there’s no personal papers in the place. Not a fucking phone bill.’
I’d developed an uneasy feeling in the stomach, the feeling you get around midday when you’ve had no breakfast. ‘What’d he do, this Jellicoe?’
Barry zipped up, came over to wash his hands. ‘Worked for a travel agency. Had the name One World, something like that. Flinders Lane.’
‘Connors?’
‘A U-bolt. I gather the real problem was selfishness, holding on to stuff he should’ve been spreading around. It was resign or take a bullet in the line of duty. Up the arse. Known at the casino, big loser but the credit’s good. Also, the books know him. Semi-mug. He put two hundred-odd grand into Laurie Masterton’s piggy in the spring.’
On the way out, Barry asked for a packet of chips. He didn’t offer to pay and the barman didn’t ask. We stood at his car, a Falcon, at least half a dozen street drug users/ dealers in view.
Barry stoked a handful of chips into his mouth, offered me the packet. ‘War on drugs,’ he said, chewing loudly, head panning the length of the street. He licked his front teeth. ‘Heard that arsehole in Canberra talking about it the other day. Winnable war. Familiar ring that.’
I said, ‘Stay in Hay this time.’
More chewing noises, eyes flicking at the street life, turned to me. ‘Jack, think about sticking in Hay yourself. The real thing here is this Connors.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He’s TransQuik.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Don’t ask. Leave it. They want snow in Darwin, these boys, it falls.’
‘You could say a bit more.’ I looked into his eyes.
He wasn’t going to say anything more, crumpled his chip packet, tried to hit a parking metre, failed.
‘Bastards move,’ he said.
20
Stuart Wardle, the journalist who gave Tony Rinaldi a cryptic question to ask the man from Klostermann Gardier, wasn’t in the phone book. I tried the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance and told a tiny fib, quite harmless.
‘I shouldn’t,’ said the woman. ‘He’s not financial.’ She gave me an address and a phone number. A woman answered on the tenth ring, no name, cautious tone.
‘Stuart’s been missing for about three years,’ she said.
I told her my story.
The big two-storey terrace house was in Parkville, a few blocks from Harry Strang’s immodest dwelling. The front door opened on a chain. I could see the right eye, nose and half the mouth of a tall woman with long hair.
I said, ‘Jack Irish. On the phone?’
‘Some kind of identification?’
I found my Law Institute Practising Member card. Lyall Cronin took it, looked at it, handed it back.
‘I don’t know if that reassures me,’ she said, unhooking the door.
She was somewhere in her thirties, a plain woman, curved nose, hollow cheeks, a judgmental face, tall, square-shouldered, black hair pulled back, wearing a green army-surplus shirt and old denims. Barefoot. Pale ovals around her eyes said she’d been wearing dark glasses in a sunny place. That ruled out Melbourne.
I followed her down the long, broad passage, round the staircase. ‘I’m in the darkroom,’ she said. ‘Sorry to be paranoid. I’ve been somewhere illegally. They can buy muscle anywhere. And they do.’
The passage walls were covered in black-and-white photographs and dozens of framed photographs leant
