Swann parked at Parliament House beside the peach Commodore, now streaky with dust and purple pulp and bird shit. He looked up into the branches of the jacaranda and saw cockatoos and reversed the Statesman into another park. He lit a cigarette and dialled the payphone at the roadhouse in South Australia, just as his watch ticked over 6.45. Dennis Gould answered on the first ring.
‘Frank, seriously mate, get me out of here. I’m done with baked beans and Chiko Rolls. Last night, I was even dreaming of a pig on the spit. Laying there in my scratchy rags, a lucid dream, watching myself watch the pig as it roasted – the juices, the glaze, the smell. Then I woke up. My neighbour was boiling another pot of King George whiting. That’s how these Croweaters cook their fish – boiled in saltwater. You believe that?’
‘Doesn’t sound too bad. King George is a sweet fish.’
‘Until you start to smell like one. What’s the news?’
‘You wanted me to get you out of there – the news is I need your help. It’s the new job – more work than I can handle. Get into Adelaide, onto the next flight. We’ll keep it quiet. Nobody needs to know you’re back. I’ll pick you up. We’ll get a feed. Call me from the airport.’
Swann watched Heenan, struggling under the weight of two shoulder bags and a couple of boxes, make his way across the concrete apron leading into the building. Swann dialled Terry Accardi at Central, and was put through to the CIB under the pseudonym of Peter Drake.
‘Mr Drake, what can I do to help?’
‘We need to meet. Usual place, in an hour.’
Swann hung up, hefted his Gladstone, climbed out of the Statesman. The time had just ticked past seven and already the sun was brutal, shearing off the glass canyons of the city and catching the thermal heat rising out of the concrete gorge of the freeway. The corridors of power were cool by comparison and the hall echoed to the squeak of his rubber-soled boots over the polished parquet floor. He showed his pass to the guard at the entrance to the ministerial rooms and found the premier pacing the carpet behind his vast bureau desk, smoking while listening to someone on the speakerphone. The voice was Maitland Conlan’s, all bluff and swagger. Swann showed the premier his wireless detector and the premier nodded, took a deep drag on his cigarette and put a shoe up onto the desk. Swann got down to work while he listened to Conlan tell a story about a liquid lunch he’d shared recently with a Japanese company director, involving the best champagne and sushi served on the belly of a hooker named Sal. Conlan lingered on the details and painted the picture of a reluctant investor won over by the power of booze and pussy, the moral of the story being the adage of every man has his price. A quick glance at the premier told Swann that Conlan’s thuggish charm was working its magic, which was a surprise. He could understand how the Conlan brothers might seem a breath of fresh air in boardrooms full of corporate functionaries; how the working-class humour would be useful disarming middle-class businessmen used to politeness and formality, but he couldn’t credit the look of rapt attention on the premier’s face. Surprised because his father was Stormie Farrell. By comparison, Maitland Conlan had lived a shifty life – he had the buccaneer stories, and Swann could see that the premier wanted it for himself. He chuckled and wiped a tear from his eye, rearranged his tackle and didn’t care when his cigarette ashed on the carpet.
Swann worked the wand over the same configurations he followed every morning: the skirts, architraves, light fittings and window frames. He made a desultory pass of the wand over the telephone and was surprised to hear it beep. He caught the premier’s eye and passed the wand over the telephone again. Again it beeped. He laid down the wand and turned over the phone. No sign of any tampering to the plate beneath. Conlan continued to speak, unaware of the look on the premier’s face – somewhere between hurt and fascination. Conlan was building up to his pitch. It was delivered while Swann used a Phillips head to unscrew the plate and peer into the wiring. The bug was spliced into the phone line – a professional job. He gave the premier a look: did he want to hang up the line? The premier shook his head. Conlan was suggesting a play for the Swan River Electric and Gas Company – he knew the director and could get a price. Did the premier want him to proceed?
Swann stood back and waited. The premier replied, ‘Yes, look into it. Gotta go, Maitland.’
Swann killed the call. He heard Heenan’s wheeze behind him and stood away. The sight of the phone’s wiring splayed out on the desk stopped Heenan in his tracks. He looked from the premier to Swann. The premier was about to speak when Swann put up a hand. He reached into his Gladstone and took out some pliers and snipped the wire either side of the bug, the size of a five-cent piece, and dropped it onto the desk. He pointed to the door, and the two men followed him out. He held the door open for them and shut it.
‘There might be fingerprints on it – unlikely but possible. It’s an expensive piece of work, and professionally done.’
The premier had his hands on his hips, looking up at Swann in the cramped corridor. His breath smelt like egg sandwiches and stale tobacco, and his skin was damp with perspiration, despite the chilled air. ‘Leave it with us, Frank. We’ll deal with it.’ His glance at Heenan was fierce enough to keep him quiet.
‘You don’t want to know how it works? What you need to do to find the recorder?’
‘Go on.’
‘That wireless receiver has a range of about fifty metres. Means that the recorder is somewhere in this building, or nearby outside. I can trace it.’
The premier shook his head, scuffed his shoes. ‘No, if it’s in one of the ministerial offices of the other parties we’ll need warrants, won’t we?’
‘Probably. Unless there’s someone you particularly suspect. You might also want to contact the police. You should.’
The premier was acting strangely enough for Swann to challenge him, but the premier avoided his eyes. ‘No. It’ll get out to the media. Leave it to us. But good work. Well done. How do I get rid of the thing?’
‘Flush it down the toilet. But that receiver wasn’t there yesterday. How long was the room left empty last night? And it’s locked, right? To install it … about ten minutes. I’ll need to talk to the building’s security – cleaners and the like.’
The premier grunted. ‘We will, Frank. We will. Heenan, that’s for you, but softly softly. No harm done, is there? You caught it early, Frank.’
Heenan and the premier conferred in the corridor while Swann retrieved his bag. Heenan pretended to appear concerned, but Swann wasn’t buying it. He was almost out of the corridor when Heenan shouted, ‘Frank, the files, they’ll be on your desk at ten. They’re being photocopied.’
Swann nodded and turned the corner.
*
The sun beat down on the bronzed river, flat and wide to the city. Swann parked the Statesman beside Accardi’s new model Falcon. Accardi got out of the plain white car and tossed a burger wrapper into a nearby bin. Each of the hundred gulls on the South Perth foreshore edged closer. The small carpark near the grove of paperbarks was a junkie hangout, and there were two men on the nod in the front seat of an HK station wagon two car bays along, and another carload of kids in a kombi looking nervously over at Swann and Accardi, while scouting the street behind them for the arrival of their dealer.
Accardi sat next to Swann and got himself comfortable on the deep leather seat. He wore a plain blue tailored wool suit and ankle-high leather boots and yellow socks, all Italian-made. He took out a pouch of Drum and set about rolling himself a cigarette.
‘You hear the news?’ he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Clifford and Welsh, their final appeal failed. They’re going to hang next week.’
‘I heard.’
A seagull landed on the bonnet of the Statesman, and Swann beeped the horn. The junkies next door woke up, panicked for a moment, then went back to sleep. Across the river the city shone. A cloud passed over the sun and the light took on an eerie clarity. The vista looked unreal, like a dream city and a dream river.
Then the cloud passed and Swann’s arms began to burn.
‘There’s your front page, editorial and letters to the editor for the next week. Should take the pressure off the Des Foley story.’
Swann remembered young Clifford, who’d gone to the same school as his youngest, Blonny. John Curtin High. A smart kid, but a little wild. Just like Swann at that age. And now he was going to hang. Swann wondered whether he’d spill, now that there was no chance of clemency, now there was no point to his notguilty plea. Tommaso Adamo and Leo Ajello and his boys would be spending a nervous week, hoping that Clifford and Welsh went quietly. None of the local papers or television coverage thus far had asked the obvious question – who the heroin was for. Neither of the men had the profile to deal that quantity. It was a matter of time before a local journo formally raised the question.
Swann lit a cigarette and told Accardi about Heenan’s offer to have Swann scrutinise the Burswood development tenders. He told Accardi about the bug on the premier’s phone and the fact that Dennis Gould was flying in, to help him search through the tenders. Accardi seemed pleased, as Swann expected.
‘I’ll get you a copy of the files,’ said Swann. ‘I’ll probably need some help from the stock exchange. Until then, anything to report on Foley, and the guy he’s stalking?’
Accardi bit a string of tobacco and pulled it from his teeth, flicked it out the window. ‘We’re watching all the roads in, the usual places. Can’t figure out the guy’s attraction to Foley. It doesn’t make any sense. Mostel’s an accountant and Foley’s an armed robber. It’s got to be personal in some way. And there’s no corroboration of the lawyer’s suspicion that Foley’s after him. You get that word out?’
‘I put it to Greg Corvo that it’d be unwise to take the Mostel contract – that he’s being watched. I’m speaking to Gus Riley this afternoon, about another matter.’
‘Good. I hear anything from the boss, I’ll let you know.’
Accardi wasn’t married and he didn’t have children. He was nearly thirty but Swann still thought of him as the kid he’d helped raise. Not yet thirty and already a Homicide cop – the boy was headed places. Playing the middle was never a long-term option, but if Accardi gathered useful intelligence on the links between local police, organised crime and legitimate business then he was set with the Federals. It would be proof that he’d outgrown the small, murky pond of WA CIB. But it could go terribly wrong. Swann was involved for his own reasons, but foremost among them was keeping an eye on Accardi, doing the legwork where it might save Accardi from scrutiny, from being outed as a rat. It was work that Swann was familiar with: looking at the people he was accustomed to watching. His bread-and-butter.
‘Look at this joker,’ said Accardi, packing away his Drum and opening the door. Swann looked at the HK station wagon. The nearest junkie was slumped with his face against the passenger window, his finger up his nose.
Accardi patted Swann’s shoulder and left the car. He walked up to the junkie and leant down to the window and shouted, ‘Pick a winner, mate!’
The junkie started, eyes wide.
*
Swann waited by the pond with two black swans paddling around in the dirty water. They didn’t appear to mind the sound of the jet engines blasting air across the tarmac. He watched the line of wind-buffeted passengers disembark the TAA Boeing down the mobile steps. Dennis Gould was noticeable because of his marked limp, the result of having one of his kneecaps shattered with a ballpein hammer. That and his mufti disguise of bucket hat, Hawaiian shirt and brown polyester shorts and thongs, obviously bought at a Nullarbor roadhouse.
The joy of returning home was written all over Gould’s sunburnt face. He tossed the bucket hat in the nearest bin and hobbled over and shook Swann’s hand and tilted his head back and let the sun kiss his smile. He was even happier when he saw the Statesman – took out a hipflask and toasted the car and fell in the passenger side.
Swann needed to put food in Gould’s belly, and he lifted the centre console and showed Gould the telephone, suggesting he call Bernie’s on the number taped to the phone and order them lunch. Gould ordered five steak sandwiches ‘with no rabbit food’, and one for Swann with everything.
Gould lived on the top floor of an old deco block of flats in Subiaco, its pink stucco faded by the sun and bore-water stains like dried blood along its base. He hadn’t been joking about his hunger – he’d already finished the steak sandwiches by the time they arrived at his home. His gammy leg was stronger than it had once been but Swann carried the box-files up the four flights. The smell of Gould’s apartment nearly bowled him over – soured milk left on the galley bench and an unflushed toilet. He waited for Gould to open the door to the small balcony and the windows in the kitchen. The sea breeze began to flow through the apartment. Swann sat on the old couch and lit a cigarette and heard the toilet flush, and waited. He laid out the six tenders on the coffee table in the numerical pattern established by Heenan, stamped by the public servants from the Ministry of Development, starting with the lowest, and assumed best bid, and finishing with the highest and least preferred bid.
Having thrown some water over his peeling face, Gould returned. He made a point of placing the empty hip flask in the sink. There would be no more booze in the apartment until he’d made some headway with the files. On previous investigations he’d been known to work sixty hours straight. He missed nothing, and drove himself on with coffee and cigarettes.
Gould burped and looked satisfied. ‘So, the state’s biggest urban development and the premier doesn’t trust his own ministry to get it right? Nice. But we’ll get it right.’
Swann nodded. ‘We’re looking for the usual. Dragic is overseas, but his money might be in this, so look for any phoenixing from him or others. Any faces that don’t fit. It’s heroin money the Feds are interested in, a la Clifford and Welsh, and links to the CIB, but we can go wider, and deeper.’
‘Jesus Christ, it’s good to be back in the old dump. Everything a fella could need!’ Gould swung his arms about, the proud homeowner of a box with a view of a hospital wall. A bed, a roof over his head, booze and cigarettes. And work. The man was set.
Swann left him clearing the floor, pushing the couches against the wall, making space for the loose sheets of the first tender on the dusty brown carpet. He’d already forgotten Swann was there.
*
Swann sat at Gus Riley’s kitchen table and sipped on a coffee made with an imported espresso machine and served in a miniature glass mug. Riley lived in a semi-detached on the edge of Chinatown. The thick limestone walls and high ceilings of the Federation building meant the room was nicely cool and dark. Riley smoked a cigar and necked his espresso, then leant over the mirror and snorted another line of cocaine through a fifty-dollar note. ‘Fark, love this shit. Though enough is never enough. It’s a fucken tease, just like Karen there. I plough into her too, but can’t never get enough, eh Karen?’
Karen had been introduced to Swann as Riley’s secretary in the home-office set up in a front room with a computer, a fax machine, a printer, jukebox and a pinball machine. Karen, in her mid-twenties and dressed in a pencil skirt and jacket with enormous shoulders, gave Riley the finger and continued sorting through a sheaf of papers that she slid into a leather case. She pointed to her watch, plumped her big peroxide perm, blew Riley a kiss and left the room.
She looked familiar to Swann, and he tried to remember from where.
‘No, Swanny, she’s not a prossie from one of the William Street knocking shops, she’s a chartered fucken accountant. Does my books and things. And my thing, yeah.’
The cocaine made Riley stare. ‘Life is fucken sweet, yeah. Sold the panel beating business to my mate Snotty. You might have heard, I’m going into construction now. Ok, demolition. And cartage. Got a contract on the East Perth housing precinct. The boys are pulling through. Most of ’em never done a hard day’s work but the money’s sweet.’
Swann let Riley’s drivel wash over him, let the cocaine do the talking. They had a long history, dating back to the early sixties when Riley reinvented himself from bodgie hoon to bikie legend. He was pretty for a bikie, but as the Nongs’ public face he’d developed a reputation for murderous rage and rat cunning – enough to negotiate his club through the shoals and reefs of drug dealing, standover, contract beatings and worse – while keeping in good with the CIB. Riley talked like a mug, but that was just him cracking dumb.
‘The other part belonging to that ear, it get found?’ Swann asked.
Riley grunted, looking for mockery in Swann’s eyes. Finding none, he nodded. ‘Old Stiggs, yeah, they let him go when the cops raided. Turns out, and get this, it wasn’t even Stiggsie’s ear. They brought a bag of ears over with them, for just that purpose. Cunning fuckers.’
‘Resourceful. Where do you reckon they got a bag of human ears from? Funeral homes? Robbing graves?’
‘Apparently, for a while there it was an initiation thing. They had to get an ear from one of the other bikie mobs. Black Power, Hell’s Angels, et cetera. When that got too hectic they started taking ears off civilians who owed them money, as punishment.’
‘They told all this to Stiggs while he was captive?’
‘Captive’s one word for it, Swanny. Kept him pissed and stoned and sucked-dick happy most of the time. Dickhead even told me, “Good fellas, those brown boys.” Nothing personal in it. Anyway, those Kiwis have gone underground now. Went and had a squiz at their clubhouse myself. Looks like the set of a B-Western. Fucken tumbleweeds blowin’ through.’
‘So Stiggs won’t be helping the police in their inquiries, I take it.’
‘What inquiries? They knocked those Maori boys around a bit, trying to get at why they were here.’
‘I thought you said they were here for the drugs?’
‘There’s that, but that ain’t it, Swanny. According to Hogan, they were here to patch over the Junkyard Dogs.’
‘Why’d anyone want to patch over the Junkyard Dogs? There’s only a couple dozen of them. Hardly got a street presence anymore.’
Riley looked evasive. ‘Beats me. Old news now. Balance has been restored – thanks to you.’
Swann let it go, though the look in Riley’s eyes suggested he knew more than he was saying.
‘On that matter. You owing me one,’ Swann replied. ‘I’ve got a question for you. One of my … associates. He asked a few inconvenient questions at a shareholder’s meeting for one of Trevor Dragic’s companies, before we closed the bastard down. Got picked up later that night, driven out into the forest, handed a shovel, if you get me.’
‘I heard about that. Poor bastard. Hang on, how do you know all this, about where and how?’
‘How do you know about it?’
‘Loose talk, Swanny. Wasn’t one of my mob, if that’s what you’re asking. Not even a freelance job. We keep a good discipline – any bashings, especially any killings, it’d have to come through me.’
‘You say that with such pride.’
‘Proud of the discipline, Swanny. Don’t like your tone either. Thought we had one of those … whaddya call it … non-judgemental relationships?’
Swann finished his coffee, tapped out another cigarette from the soft packet, lit and took a deep, deep drag.
‘Jesus. Hurts my lungs just watchin’ you smoke, Swann. You should give the cigars a go. Can see you’re rattled, which ain’t like you. Was he a good mate, the dearly departed?’
So Riley didn’t know that Dennis Gould was alive. ‘Which mob were the bastards from? That’s all I’m asking.’
‘Well, on this occasion, I don’t mind telling you. Since they’re already on today’s minutes. The Junkyard Dogs, of course. They might be few in number, but that’s just because they’ve weeded out the non-heavy riders – very particular about their novices too. I heard it was them who did your boy in.’
‘You didn’t think to tell me that earlier?’
‘You didn’t ask. Otherwise, none of my business. And I’ve told you, right, so we’re square …’
Swann took another deep drag that nearly killed the ciggie. ‘Any names?’
‘Nope, just that it was them.’
Swann got up to leave, stubbed out his cigarette. ‘One last thing. You would have heard about a contract to knock Des Foley, put on the street yesterday. Don’t touch it. Take the money, whatever, but the bloke who’s offering is being watched. You’ll get nailed. Understood?’
‘Wouldn’t anyway. Des was a mate of mine, from way back. I’ve instructed the boys.’
‘Your organisational discipline. I forgot.’
Riley pretended to look hurt. ‘No need for that, Swann. Though I wouldn’t want to be in Des’ shoes. That bloke who put the contract on, he’s got deep pockets from what I heard. He’s the Conlan brothers’ personal accountant. Going places on his own, too. Plenty who’ll want to help him out, is my guess.’
‘You hear anything, you let me know.’
Riley laughed. ‘We got that kind of relationship, Swann? I hear things; I let you know?’
‘It’ll be worth your while.’
‘I know. You got the man’s ear.’ Riley picked up the rolled fifty. ‘But that’s enough about fucking ears. Feed the nose, that’s the ticket.’
Swann walked the cool dark corridor towards the doorway of blazing light, felt the heat on his face.