Frank Moretti wanted to be part of life, to be part of Sydney, the two things being indistinguishable for him. With money, with lies, with grovelling, with threats, with bribes, with cheating, with charm, with determination and with spirit he would succeed; he had, and he would.
But he felt nauseous and the room suddenly seemed terribly overheated. He could feel sweat breaking out all over him. And accompanying these physical feelings was a sudden sense of shame and regret that only made him angrier, and his anger only made him sicker. Yet why did he now feel so fearful, so guilty?
Though he had tried all day, he could not stop looking at the newspaper. The photographs had not changed. It was him, Tariq al-Hakim, the programmer whom he had lately been using, twice to bring heroin out of Pakistan, once, more profitably, carrying coke from Kuala Lumpur; and with him, amazingly, that woman, the stripper Krystal. It was ludicrous, of course, or perhaps it wasn’t. It was hard to say. What was clear to him, though, was that it was only a matter of time now before the authorities came to him, only a short time before they went through him, looking at his accounts, delving deeper, and then it would all be over. They would work it out soon enough, he knew they would, find out who he really was and what he really did.
After all, it was Tariq al-Hakim, with ideas far above his lowly station, who had set up his meeting with Lee Moon, for whom, presumably, he had also done some mule work. And it was Lee Moon’s idea that Frank Moretti deal with the Sydney port part of his new operation, smuggling men into Australia in shipping containers, for Frank Moretti’s contacts there, who had helped him in the past with his other imports, were of the first order: reliable and trustworthy.
“Women we do other way,” Lee Moon had smiled. Frank Moretti knew well enough that meant bringing them in on educational visas to work in his chicken coops, which Lee Moon graciously invited Frank Moretti to make use of as his guest.
The deal was done, and Tariq al-Hakim had been meant to collect the cargo that morning, but all day had passed and most of the evening and Moretti had heard nothing. Worried, he once more tried to call him.