him what to do-more importantly, what not to do, like go boozing with a nice chap from ASIC. The phone was useless. Rundown batteries. Human error. One of my specialties.
They held me for three hours, long enough. Viv Garner came and did his stuff but there wasn’t a lot to it. The complainant couldn’t be contacted and the whole thing was obviously a put-up job. Masters didn’t show again. I got a warning from Quist about the use of my pistol, which was returned to me, but his heart wasn’t in it.
‘What was all that about?’ Viv asked as we passed the smokers and walked down the steps.
‘Harassment,’ I said. ‘Can you give me a lift to the ASIC office in King Street?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re moving in exalted company.’
‘Not really. Just bodyguarding, or trying to.’
He dropped me off and I charged into the building and up to the level where I’d left Mackenzie and Whitney. Mackenzie was sitting where I’d sat but he wasn’t quietly reading, he was talking into his mobile and looking agitated. When he saw me he cut off the call and looked as if he’d like to cut off my balls.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
I told him. ‘Where’s Whitney?’
‘Gone to the toilet. He’s been shitting himself, literally, ever since you didn’t show. Somebody’s got to him, put the fear of God into him.’
‘When?’
‘When we were frigging about waiting for you.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. He won’t tell me. He made a couple of phone calls. Calmed him down a bit. But basically he won’t be happy till he sees you. Christ knows why after this fuck-up.’
‘Knock it off, Stu. There’s more players in this game than we reckoned on. How’d the meetings here go?’
‘Not bad. It’s big. They’re going to look into it.’
‘Has he got immunity?’
Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Not quite yet.’
‘Maybe that’s what freaked him.’
‘No.’
Whitney came towards us. From the look of him his confidence level had dropped about four notches. Mackenzie stepped straight in and explained what had happened.
Whitney just nodded as if this piece of bad news was par for the course. ‘Can we get on with it?’
We left Mackenzie and went to the York Street car park where I’d left my Falcon. Long overdue. Another item on the expense account along with Viv Garner’s bill.
‘What happened?’ I said as we got moving.
‘I need a drink. I’ll tell you then.’
We went into the bar of the Hyatt and Whitney ordered a double scotch. I had a light beer although I could’ve done with something stronger. He bought a packet of cigarillos, lit one and drew on it like a cigarette. I recognised the signs-the ex-smoker telling himself he’s not back on them. The scotch wasn’t going to last long from the way he was getting stuck into it.
‘While we were milling about looking for you, a man came up to me. He looked like one of the ASIC investigators and he might’ve been for all I know. All he said was I should think about my wife and children.’
‘Shit, what did you do?’
‘I got on to Ken Bates. He’s setting up protection for them. What’s wrong?’
I said, ‘Nothing,’ and started on my beer. What was the point of telling him I thought he’d set the fox to watch the henhouse? It seemed to have put his mind at rest and that’d have to do for now.
He smoked a couple of cigarillos and had another double while he told me about how the partners in MIA had relayed their skimmings back to themselves through loans that would never have to be repaid from companies that were here today although not yesterday and wouldn’t be here tomorrow.
He bought a bottle of scotch and started in on it as soon as we got back to the hotel.
‘Book us a couple of seats on the first flight to Brisbane,’ he said.
‘Flight?’
He held up his glass. ‘Enough of this and I guess I can do it.’
It’s worrying when a man starts changing his habits-getting back on the weed, defying a phobia-especially an apparently disciplined guy like Whitney. The next step can be a breakdown and you’re left as not so much a nursemaid as a nurse, period. I’ve had it happen to me. But Whitney held himself pretty well together on the drive to the airport and through the boarding procedure which I expected to freak him. The big load of whisky he had inside him no doubt helped. He gripped the seat arm a bit during take-off but seemed okay about being airborne. It was time for me to have a real drink or two and I ordered a scotch and had one of those little bottles of red wine with the meal. Whitney didn’t have anything. Once we’d levelled out and he’d flicked through the in-flight magazine he nodded off.
That left me trying not to drop food in my lap and pondering the ins and outs of the case. I didn’t ponder too long; the intricacies of the financial fiddles were beyond me and my only concern was keeping Whitney safe until it was time for him to sing his song. I felt sure there’d be attempts to stop him and it was my job to prevent that, but exactly who was likely to do the stopping didn’t matter. So far the intervention had been both crude, as at Violet Town, and subtle, as with Masters and Quist. With white collar crime you have to expect that. Not all the collars are white.
Whitney woke up as I was working on the dregs of the red and I asked him why Brisbane.
‘I’ve set up a little business there. A sort of sideline. Consulting. I’ve got a hole-in-the-corner office in Eagle Street and a little flat in West End. I’ve taken short breaks up there and done some business. I’d like to build it up a bit while I’m waiting for ASIC to get moving. No one in Melbourne knows about it.’
A secret life, I thought. Something a lot of men hanker for-most men probably. I wondered if it included a secret woman, usually part of the fantasy.
By the time we landed in Brisbane Whitney was close to sober. I watched him carefully to see how familiar he was with the airport. If he knew it well I’d know he’d been lying about his flying phobia and that would be interesting. He didn’t; he followed the signs as if he’d never been there before. We collected our bags and went out to the taxi stand. I breathed in some of that warm, scented air and felt good. Some of the scent is petrol and aviation fuel, I guess, but some of it is to do with latitude. One of these days I’ll go north.
I’ve worked in Brisbane a few times but I’m not really familiar with it. West End, I seemed to remember, was something like Glebe in character, and near the river. Whitney gave the address to the driver and settled down to his own thoughts. He had his laptop with him as well as the briefcase Mackenzie had given him plus an overnight bag, probably from the same source.
The taxi pulled up outside a big Queenslander that backed onto the river. Whitney opened the front gate and pointed to a path leading around the house.
‘Divided up into flats. Mine’s at the back. Good view of the river, particularly from the dunny.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ I said.
At the back the block fell away to the river, gleaming under a clear sky. A big catamaran with lights blazing surged by as Whitney put his key in the lock.
‘City cat,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Good town, Brisbane. I might move here when all this is over. Jesus Christ!’
He’d opened the door and turned on the light. I peered around him into a small living room that looked as if the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Sex Pistols had occupied it for a month.
And that was just about it for a while for Mr Thomas Whitney, Esq., Old Grammarian and stroke of the eight. He fell to pieces and I had to get him settled in a habitable corner, clean the place up and consider what to do next. From the way he behaved I concluded that he’d been under immense strain for some time and all his apparent control had been a facade. When he collapsed he really went down. He wept a bit, chewed his fingernails, muttered to himself and kept saying ‘How? How? How?’ over and over again.
