He grimaced. ‘And you told Lorrie that and she read me the riot act.’
I shrugged. ‘I was trying to shake something up.’
‘You fucking did.’
‘It’s my job.’
‘Yeah. Everything’s changed now. Did he know the woman with you was Lorrie?’
‘I hate to say it but I think he could’ve. I found out later my phones were tapped. I was slack.’
‘You were. All right, I’m going to have to trust you, and that goes against the grain. If this goes any further, I’m dead in here. I’ve asked around. A few blokes say you’re a complete prick but you’ve got some balls and you’re not a talker. This is how it was. I was approached to be an inside man in the prison system to track how the drugs were getting in. I was supposed to be convicted of a medium level import, get five years, be out in under three. They were going to move me around and I’d report to them how the system worked. The conviction was going to be overturned and I’d be paid a big compensation with a lot more under the counter.’
‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘Why’d you agree to that?’
‘A couple of reasons. One, they were going to do me for a fraud thing and put me inside for a stretch anyway if I didn’t play. Two, I couldn’t stand being second fiddle to Lorrie. Running that gym was something straight I could do and enjoy and make money at.’
‘So what happened?’
‘They double-crossed me or fucking triple or quadruple. First, my contact, Eastman or West or whoever the fuck he is, wasn’t a federal cop at all. He had been, but now he was a go-between for federal and state cops and some prison officers looking to make a pile. They’d set up the customs blokes and the trial people and that. Two, they planted a shit-load on me and I got what I got. Three, forget about dope. This is about heroin.’
He paused as if revealing all this that he’d kept secret had taken his breath away. Heroin made sense. Big money. Three dead people-small price to pay.
Master smiled and there was a variety of different emotions in the smile-guilt, shame, anger, even amusement. ‘Here’s number four and it’s the clincher. I’m going to be the way in for the smack. It’s all arranged. If I don’t do it I serve the ten, probably more. Extensions are easy to arrange.’
‘It doesn’t sound like such a booming market.’
‘You don’t understand. Get a lot of these kids hooked, blokes in for short stretches, Abos and Viets especially, and then when you’ve got them on the outside you’ve got a market and people to exploit. All sorts of things an addict’ll do for you if you’ve got what he wants. How does that grab you, Hardy?’
A jackhammer started somewhere close by and its clatter was unnerving. It was my turn to sit back and think. The visiting time was coming to an end. Everyone’s heard of deals like this, usually when they go wrong, and Master’s had gone wrong in the worst way. He seemed almost to enjoy it except that his capacity for enjoyment had pretty much left him.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t really a question.’
He shook his head. ‘No. It’s a fuck-up.’
‘Right. I’d have to say it’s one of the biggest fuck-ups I’ve come across.’
His lean features hardened; he didn’t look so youthful and there was a pent-up force in the way he shifted slightly in his seat. ‘You haven’t just come across it, Hardy. You’re fucking involved.’
‘Time’s up.’ The guard advanced towards us.
‘Stay in touch through O’Connor,’ Master said as he acknowledged the call.
‘You trust him?’
He laughed as if what I’d said was the funniest thing he’d heard all week.
Jumpy wasn’t the word for the way I felt as I collected my stuff from the locker. Master had said the drugs operation had required the cooperation of people inside the prison system as it always has. Was someone at Avonlea aware of my visit? Watching me now? On his mobile to someone outside? It didn’t make for steady hands and good driving. It made for high-alert tension, keyed-up responses, adrenaline-fuelled reactions and increased perspiration levels. I worked my way back to the main road by a circuitous route. Anyone following me would have stuck out like a frisbee on a golf green.
To clear my head I played a country music station for the first few kilometres back to the city. Robert Johnson’s thin but resonant vocals and guitar ripped in. Thanks to a couple of visits to the Blues ‘n Roots festival at Byron Bay where Tess Hewitt, a former girlfriend, lived, I knew a bit about Johnson, the ‘king of the Delta blues’. I was reminded of a line about him in the film Ghosts of Mississippi — ’If I was goin’ to sell my soul to the Devil I’d want a lot more than some guitar lessons.’ Stewart Master had done something like that and the deal was turning very sour on him. Robert Johnson hadn’t lived very long after the supposed deal to exchange his soul for the ability to play delta blues better than anyone ever had.
As things stood, Stewart Master wasn’t looking at a long and happy life either. According to his own assessment, if he didn’t go along with the arrangement he was dead. If he did, what guarantee did he have that the result wouldn’t be much the same? Master, in my revised estimate of him, struck me as tough, possibly fatalistic. There was a chance he’d tell the manipulators to go to hell and take the consequences. Unless extra pressure could be brought to bear on him. That hit me the way the smelling salts do when the trainer puts them under your nose between rounds and tells you what you have to do when you’re out there again.
The power of that thought had blotted out Robert Johnson and the phoney stuff that had followed-Waylon Jennings, Garth Brooks. I held the old, wavering car steady in the middle lane with one hand on the wheel as I jabbed at the buttons on my mobile.
‘Mrs Master has left the hospital, Mr Hardy.’
‘What?’ The car swerved as I shouted into the phone. ‘What d’you mean she’s left?’
‘I’m not prepared to be shouted at over the telephone.’
I fought for control. ‘I’m sorry. I visited her the other day. I’m helping her with a certain matter. Please tell me what happened.’
The hospital official told me that the police had interviewed Lorrie in the morning and that she had seemed undisturbed by their visit. The doctor had said her progress was satisfactory and she had walked about a little with her arm in a sling. A bit later she had called a person from her office who had brought in some clothes. She’d dressed and checked out of the hospital, signing a waiver form releasing the hospital from any responsibility for her condition and paying her bill in full.
‘This person. A young Asian woman?’
‘Yes. We’re very worried, Mr Hardy. What is happening?’
‘I’m not sure. Did she leave with the Asian woman?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I’m on my way to the hospital now. Could you please check on that and see if there’s anyone who actually saw her leave.’
‘This is very alarming.’
I tried for a non-alarming tone. ‘I think there’s an explanation but I’d just like to get things straight. Please do as I ask.’
Then I rang Fiona at the office who confirmed that Lorrie had asked her to buy her some clothes and bring them in.
‘Buy? Not get from home?’
‘No. She was very clear about that, so I did it. I bought her underwear, a blouse and a skirt. She said she had shoes and a jacket. I took them in and she told me to go back to work, so I did. Is there something wrong?’
I smoothed her down as well, and made two more calls, breaking the law by talking as I drove. One was to the Double Bay house where Britt reported that all was well with both children safely home from school and the guard O’Connor had hired in place. Britt sounded shaky, as if being an au pair in Australia suddenly wasn’t the safest job in the world as it would’ve been a short while back. Couldn’t blame her.
My next call was to O’Connor, who wasn’t available. I left a message for him to contact me on my mobile and to be ready to meet me wherever and whenever I said. The person who took the message made me repeat it three times before he could believe what he was hearing.
