Garry Disher - Kick Back

By now they were almost stationary. The driver’s foot was no longer on the accelerator. Bauer released his hold and, still steering, slapped the driver’s cheek and whistled piercingly in his ear. When the taxi was motionless he moved the gear lever into Park.

He opened the window. The air was very cold. The driver recovered, shaking his head. ‘You bastard,’ he said.

‘You feel a little dizzy,’ Bauer said, ‘but the sensations are coming back to your fingers, correct? You can see and hear and breathe again.’ He reached forward and turned off the taxi radio. ‘You will not call your base about this. Now, let us begin again. Where is the action in Melbourne. I want the names of places. Think carefully, now.’

‘I don’t know,’ the driver said. ‘I am part-time only’

Bauer shook his head in disgust. ‘You’re a student? I suppose the government is supporting you? I suppose you will stay on when your visa expires? You make me sick.’ He sat back and pointed ahead. ‘Go. St Kilda.’

He appeared to go to sleep. The driver eased back into traffic and drove across the city. Where Fitzroy Street meets the Esplanade in St Kilda, Bauer said, ‘I will walk now.’

He paid the fare and an extra twenty dollars, saying, ‘You won’t be following this up. You’ll take the money and keep quiet.’ He reached into the back seat for his bag, got out, and stood waiting on the footpath.

The driver sat, the engine idling. Then he opened his door, stood half in and half out of the taxi, and called shrilly to Bauer, at roof level, ‘Your sister sleeps with black men.’

He jerked back into the driver’s seat and sped away in the direction of Luna Park.

Bauer shrugged. ‘Haven’t got a sister.’

He drew the strap of his bag over one shoulder and walked back along Fitzroy Street. Palm trees, lawns and buildings on the other side of the street, Italian bistros, ice-cream parlours, adult bookshops and local residents on this side. Junkies and drunks blinking in the wintry sun.

He turned into a side street and began the climb to his walled-in house. He didn’t like living in St Kilda, but he had no choice. The Sydney outfit wanted him close to their Melbourne interests, their clubs and other front operations, their pushers and pinball parlours. Not that he had to do much, just make sure people like Ivan Younger didn’t have their fingers in the till, put the frights on if someone played up, fly to Sydney with the weekly take.

The worst part was working with trash. He found Sugarfoot Younger waiting outside the front gate, his fleshy face perplexed by Placida’s squawk on the intercom.

Sugarfoot nodded hello, keeping it cool, letting Bauer know he wasn’t fazed. He took in the dark cord trousers and the ribbed blue pullover under a short leather jacket, the pale hair cut close to the scalp, the shadows like gashes in Bauer’s hollow cheeks.

But Bauer ignored him and punched numbered keys next to the intercom. The electric lock disengaged. Bauer said, ‘Please go in, my friend.’

Sugarfoot felt like sneering. Bauer looked tough, until you heard that stupid accent. ‘Ta,’ he said, entering the front garden.

He let Bauer go ahead of him down a brick path to the front door. It was plain and solid, with no knocker or buzzer, only another set of numbered keys. Sensing movement, he glanced up. A security camera was trained on him. He looked at the windows on either side of the door. They were barred, but Sugarfoot wouldn’t mind betting there were also electric eyes everywhere. Bauer was probably like Ivan in that respect-had a consuming sense of security and survival. ‘Nice place,’ he said.

Bauer ignored him and entered another code. The front door clicked open and he stood back and said again, ‘Please go in, my friend.’

Sugarfoot stepped into the house. The hallway was cold and smelt of furniture polish. He’d barely taken two steps when he heard the click of paws on the wooden floor and a dog emerged from the shadows. It crouched, utterly still, observing him. Sugarfoot held his breath. Among the many things Ivan had warned him about was Bauer’s killer dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback. His hand slipped instinctively inside his coat.

‘Keep still,’ Bauer said softly. Then more sharply, ‘Down!’

Sugarfoot began to drop.

‘Not you,’ Bauer said, and Sugarfoot saw the dog lie flat and baleful on the floor.

‘Not a bad dog,’ Sugarfoot said.

Bauer regarded him expressionlessly for a moment and Sugarfoot wondered if he’d offended the man. ‘Don’t upset him,’ Ivan had said. ‘Just watch and learn and do as he says.’ Sugarfoot tried to meet Bauer’s eyes.

Suddenly Bauer smiled, a slight relaxation of his facial muscles, and said, ‘So. You are here to help me with your brother’s problems.’

Sugarfoot cleared his throat. ‘Ivan said this bird at Calamity Jane’s been skimming off the top.’

Bauer nodded. ‘Come in. Sit for a minute. Would you like something to drink?’

Surprised, Sugarfoot said, ‘Got any Corona?’

‘Corona,’ said Bauer oppressively.

‘Yeah, you know, it’s this beer.’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘Oh well, give us a Fosters, whatever,’ Sugarfoot said.

Bauer barked, ‘Placida!’

Sugarfoot heard footsteps. He looked along the corridor toward the back of the house. A young, dark-haired woman had appeared. She was meek and subservient and excessively still.

‘A bottle of beer for our guest. I will have mineral water.’

The woman disappeared and Sugarfoot followed Bauer into a sitting room. The carpet was sombre, the curtains thick. A massive sideboard faced a suite of black leather armchairs. There were no books or pictures, only a hunting magazine on a low glass coffee table.

Sugarfoot thought about the woman. According to Ivan, Bauer had ordered her through a mail-order bride catalogue. She was more servant than wife. Bauer kept her shut away here, dependent on him for a few dollars to send home to her family. Ivan reckoned Bauer was recreating the life he’d had in South Africa, without the risk of prosecution under some immorality act. Sugarfoot lost Ivan at that point: it all sounded complicated, like something on Sixty Minutes.

He looked at Bauer. ‘How do you reckon on doing it?’

‘Doing what?’ Bauer said.

‘Throwing a scare into this woman,’ Sugarfoot said.

Bauer held up his hand. ‘Wait.’ He looked past Sugarfoot to the door. ‘Put the drinks on the coffee table. You may listen to the radio in the kitchen.’

Jesus, Sugarfoot thought. Poor bloody bitch.

When Placida was gone, Bauer said, ‘We will go there and we will talk to her.’

He wouldn’t say more than that. Sugarfoot drank his beer quickly, wanting to get this over with. You don’t exactly yarn over a beer with the Bauers of this world.

Sugarfoot found it all a bit shadowy. He knew that Bauer worked for the Sydney outfit, which had fingers in several pies-drugs, gambling, kickbacks, places like Calamity Jane’s- but he couldn’t quite work out the chain of command. Bauer was sort of in charge, but you wouldn’t exactly call Ivan a member of staff. He had money invested with them and he managed some rackets for them. The only explanation Ivan would give him was that, in this game, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, and you don’t ask questions.

Sugarfoot put down his glass. Bauer said immediately, ‘We will go now.’

Sugarfoot drove them in his Customline. As they wound through the streets of St Kilda, he dropped a few leading remarks about the V8, the restoration job, where to go for a good rechroming, but Bauer ignored him.

So he raised the Calamity Jane job again, approaching it sideways. ‘There was this bloke,’ he said, ‘I put the frights on a couple of year ago, before I started working with Ivan. Anyway, he threatens to go to the jacks. I said, mention my fucking name, mate, and you’re dead. I said, if you go to the cops, I’ll come in your bedroom and kill you while you sleep. That’s fear for you, going to bed not knowing if you’ll see the morning. I go, I’ll burn you and all your family, me, personally. You, I said, your daughters, especially your daughters, plus that slag you’re married to, every one of youse. I said, you got to sleep sometime, pal, you can’t fucking stay awake twelve months of the year. Work it out for yourself, I said. What’s more important, keeping up your payments or waking up one morning with a hole in your head?’ He paused. ‘Worked,’ he said, nodding his head.