Montefiore-it had to be him-leaned against a wall and then slid down into a fragile-looking Chinese saucer chair that held his weight, just. His mane of dark hair was slightly streaked with grey-could’ve been distinguished if it hadn’t been greasy and matted. He smiled and I saw a gap where a couple of front teeth should have been. ‘Pretty shitty, eh?’
I eased down into a plastic chair after flicking away an empty Winfield packet. I nodded. ‘It’ll do.’
He snorted. ‘Haven’t got any dope on you by any chance?’
‘No.’
He shrugged. Despite the broken arm the musculature was intact, but it wouldn’t be unless he got into some physiotherapy pretty soon. ‘How’s Reg doing?’
‘On his uppers. Reckon he sold you out?’
‘No, we’re mates in this fuckin’ mess. You must be the genuine article. How much money are we talking? Sorry I can’t offer you anything.’
‘Don’t worry about it. The money part doesn’t work like that. That’d be like telling the reserve price at an auction. Penny gave me a taste before I bought. You’re going to have to do the same.’
‘Give me a clue.’
‘Rory McCloud.’
‘Disappeared. Suspicious circumstances.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’re on “go”.’
Montefiore excused himself and left the room. I heard water running and when he returned he’d made an attempt at combing his hair, had washed his face and had shrugged into a creased but clean blue sports shirt. He had beach scuffs on his feet and I could smell toothpaste over the competing smells in the flat, mostly dirt, take- away food and stale tobacco.
He sat where he’d sat before. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you a drink or anything.’
‘Don’t worry’
‘So you’re paying Reg ten grand.’
‘Nine or ten.’
‘Must think all his birthdays have come at once. Just for putting you on to me. I reckon what I can tell you must be worth twenty, twenty-five.’
‘Could be. I’ll have to be the judge.’
He scratched at his stubble. ‘Problem would be living to spend it and getting Fay out with me.’
‘Fay?’
‘Girlfriend. Fay Lewis. One of the Kiwi Kuties.’ He found a leaflet among the mess beside his chair and passed it over to me. It advertised the Kiwi Kuties, performing nightly at the Salon de Fun-’lap’s dancing and stripe tease’ among the attractions. The leaflet showed three blondes in minuscule outfits top and bottom plus white Stetsons and high-heeled knee-high boots. Lots of stars and spangles, a suggestion, of the American flag. Good war-against-terrorism stuff. The three women looked identical.
‘Fay’s the one on the end,’ Montefiore said.
I shrugged. ‘Left or right and how can you tell?’
‘Fuck you,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she’s more a part of this than you think. She’s got a photograph you’d be very interested in.’
‘You’d better get me interested, then,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to. Might catch something.’
Montefiore wasn’t a gifted storyteller. He backtracked, repeated himself and fumbled for the right expression. Also, he threw in some French words here and there and I had to ask for a translation. What he had to say boiled down to this: after the property deal fell through the five Australians decided to hang around Noumea for a while looking for other opportunities. McCloud, Penny and Montefiore were approached by a man with a proposition-help to set up Stewart Master as a drug smuggler taking a small amount of heroin into Australia and they’d be in for a big reward. Not only cash in hand, but the green light from the federal and state police to handle a big marijuana consignment going into Australia. The stuff was coming down from South-East Asia and Pascal Rivages was handling the Pacific trans-shipment.
McCloud’s reaction was to threaten to go straight to the police and to tell Master, who was away elsewhere on the island. ‘They’ll fish him and his car out of deep water somewhere one of these days,’ Montefiore said.
Penny said he wasn’t interested one way or the other, which disappointed the man because he’d thought of Penny’s yacht as the delivery vehicle. The idea was to land the waterproofed bales on a reef off the coast and then move it to the mainland. Penny was warned anonymously to keep his mouth shut and certain things began to go wrong with his boat. He was burgled and lost most of his available cash. Montefiore reckoned that Mr X and Rivages wanted him to stick right there in Noumea where they could keep an eye on him.
‘I played along for a while to see if I could make a dollar out of it. I never had any intention of going through with it and when that became obvious, Rivages had Sione work me over. But good.’
‘Rosito?’
Montefiore shook his head. ‘Gabe’s got plenty of money. More than the rest of us put together. All he’s interested in is cunt. They knew they couldn’t get to him.’
Montefiore said he didn’t know how it was done but the plan went through. Master was nabbed and convicted. He presumed that Rivages got his shipment through and that everything was hunky-dory.
‘Question one,’ I said. ‘Who was this mastermind?’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Tell me everything about him you can think of.’
‘Jeez, I wish I had a drink.’
‘Later. You’re doing well. You’ll be able to afford a few.’
‘Okay. Australian, mid-thirties, medium-sized, maybe a bit bigger. Not that fit. Ordinary looking, mousy hair, nothing unusual except… I’d swear blind he was a cop. He had the manner, you know? Sort of special in his own fuckin’ head.’
I nodded. ‘Scars, mannerisms, habits? Come on.’
Montefiore scraped at his stubble as if the rasping sound would trigger a memory. ‘Didn’t smoke. Drank mineral water in the pub. Jesus, yes, he had BO. He was scrubbed clean, shaved close, short back and sides, fresh shirt and daks, but he still had this whiff of BO.’
‘Good. Question two. Why’re you still around and in this dump?’
Montefiore had taken a bad beating and was down on his luck, but he wasn’t a man without self-esteem. From the look on his face I could tell he’d have hit me if he’d been able and he wanted to tell me to go to hell because he couldn’t. ‘I ran out of money and this is the best I can do. At least Rivages doesn’t know where I am.’
‘Why does that matter?’
‘I reckon he’s still making up his mind what to do with Reg and me. He doesn’t like us knowing what we know. He’s got fingers in lots of pies-property, gambling, politics. We could damage him if we talked. Equally, if we went missing like Rory it wouldn’t look good.’
‘Can’t he buy the cops?’
Montefiore shook his head and looked tired all of a sudden. ‘No. Not here. He’s obviously in with that Australian cop so I don’t know if we’d even be safe back at home. If I get out of this I’ll take off for somewhere else as quick as I can. New Zealand maybe, Fiji, Bali
‘Okay. You’ve earned some money, but I’ve thought of something else. If Rosito’s not in on it, why did he get in touch with Rivages so quickly?’
‘Just playing safe. Silly fucker reckons Pascal can help him with the widow. Like I told you, he-’
‘Yeah. What about you and this Kiwi? Let’s get back to her, and you and her.’
‘I’m crazy about her. She’s amazing. She’ll go with me if I’ve got money.’
I grinned. ‘That doesn’t sound like a match made in heaven.’
‘Get stuffed. See this?’ He grabbed at his hair. ‘I’m not a kid any more. I’ve led a weird, rough life and I don’t expect to make old bones. I want to grab what I can while I can.’
‘Fair enough. So, this photograph?’
