Garry Disher - Kick Back

He came to Williamstown Road. The lights were against him but the dickheads were trundling across the intersection like they were out for a Sunday drive, so he leaned on the horn, turned left in front of them, and opened up along Williamstown Road.

He parked at the back of Bargain City and walked through to the showroom. Leanne, who helped in the mornings, was trying to talk some dickhead into buying a vacuum cleaner. ‘The cord goes in here,’ she was saying. Sugarfoot stood next to her until she looked up.

‘Ivan in?’ he said.

‘He’s at an auction. Be back by lunchtime.’

Beautiful. Time to do some Wyatt groundwork. But just as Sugarfoot turned to walk away, Leanne said, ‘He wants you to move those rolls of carpet out the back. He says they’re starting to pong.’

Things like this could break the camel’s back. Forcing himself to stay cool, Sugarfoot said, ‘No worries. By the way, you got the key?’

‘The key?’

‘Yeah, the cupboard.’

She turned to the customer and pointed to a box on the floor. ‘It comes with all the attachments,’ she said. Turning again to Sugarfoot, she said, ‘The key’s in my top drawer.’

‘Ta.’

‘But don’t forget he wants you to move those carpets.’

‘No worries.’

The customer said, ‘You sure it works all right?’

‘Like new,’ Leanne said. ‘Our technician tests everything before it’s put in the shop.’

Fucking technician. Ivan with a rag and a screwdriver. Sugarfoot went into Leanne’s tiny glassed office, found her keys, and walked through to the storeroom at the rear of the shop.

Ivan kept ‘SOLD’ and ‘SALE’ stickers, price tags, receipts, invoice books and files locked in a grey steel cabinet. Anything else he needed to know he carried in his head. Sugarfoot was hoping that addresses and phone numbers were not in this category.

Among the files and records he found a small box of filing cards labelled ‘contractors’. The cards listed names, contact information and brief comments. The card with Wyatt’s name on it simply said ‘messages via Rossiter’ and ‘works with Hobba’. Hobba’s card carried an address in Flemington and the words ‘works with Pedersen’. Pedersen’s card carried an address in Brunswick and the words ‘works with Hobba’.

There was also a card for Rossiter. Sugarfoot wrote down addresses for Rossiter, Hobba and Pedersen, locked the cabinet and returned the keys to Leanne’s desk. She was counting out change to the customer, who stood frowning in doubt at the vacuum cleaner coiled in a carton at his feet.

She looked up at Sugarfoot as if surprised to see him there. ‘Don’t forget you have to do the carpets.’

‘It’ll have to wait,’ Sugarfoot said. ‘I have to go out.’

‘But Ivan’ll go mental.’

‘Too bad,’ Sugarfoot said. Jesus Christ she pissed him off sometimes.

He turned his back on her and picked his way through the scungy tables and armchairs, liking the way his cuban heels snapped on the old floorboards. Behind him, the customer was saying, ‘Thirty days’ warranty isn’t much.’

And in front of him Ivan was just coming in. ‘You done those carpets?’

‘My ribs hurt,’ Sugarfoot said. ‘Could be cracked.’

Ivan was going to walk past him, busy man with his finger on the pulse, but then he stopped, showing concern. ‘The carpets can wait. Did you do like I said, take it easy over the weekend?’

Sugarfoot shrugged.

Ivan said, back to business again, ‘Stick around. You might be doing a job with Bauer later’

Bauer. Now that was big time.

Andreis Bauer spent the morning reporting to the Sydney outfit and by three o’clock he was in the arrivals hall at Melbourne Airport again. He could see his luggage revolving on the Ansett carousel but he walked by it, stopped at the public telephone next to the Men’s, and called Ivan Younger. He faced away from the wall. Guard your back, the first rule in this game. He listened to the ringing tone and looked bleakly out at the hall. He was slight and wiry. He had bloodless lips and pale skin that seemed to be stretched over a frame of sharp bones. He scowled at a blow-waved Greek loading luggage onto a trolley.

Ivan Younger came onto the line, saying, ‘Bargain City,’ in that high voice of his.

Bauer said, ‘That shift supervisor at Calamity Jane’s-what is her name?’

‘The one skimming the profits? Ellie.’

‘What time does she come on duty?’

‘She does four to midnight,’ Younger said. ‘Listen, what did Sydney say? Are they pissed off?’

‘They are not happy,’ Bauer said. ‘They say you don’t run a tight ship, your profits are down.’

‘Come on,’ Younger said, aggrieved. ‘What about those slags Ken Sala runs for me, Cher and Simone? You can’t say that’s not profitable.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Bauer said. ‘If you are careless enough to let one of your staff skim off our profits, you are careless enough to let everyone do it.’

‘Says them,’ Ivan said. ‘Come on, Bauer, it won’t happen again. I’ll waste the bitch.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Bauer said. ‘I will talk to her this afternoon.’

There was a pause while Younger absorbed this. Bauer watched the swinging door to the Men’s. There had been times when he’d used toilet cubicles for his hits. The mark was most vulnerable then, his trousers around his ankles. The cleanest way was a silenced.22 fired just above the hairline, but a guy had once reared up at him and he’d been forced to punch the guy, knocking his nasal bone back into his brain.

Ivan Younger was talking again. ‘You’re the boss. But like I said before, if you could take Sugar along with you, he’d learn something, so we wouldn’t have to hassle you in future.’

Bauer shrugged at a passing clergyman. ‘So long as he keeps out of the way. Tell him my place, four o’clock.’

He hung up and collected his overnight bag and got into a Silver Top. The driver was Asian. That didn’t surprise him, you found them everywhere. ‘St Kilda,’ he said.

On the Tullamarine Freeway he watched the scenery, the satellite industries that cluster around airports everywhere, the miles of tiled roofs stretching to the city skyline, the gloomy clouds caught at the tops of the high city buildings. He asked, as if he were visiting the place, ‘Where’s the action in Melbourne?’ He called it research. He minded several Melbourne operations now, and whenever he was in a taxi he liked to ask background questions, taxi drivers being well-known for having a finger on the pulse.

‘Depends,’ the driver said, ‘but you’re starting at the right place. Most people try St Kilda first.’

Not much accent. Probably been sponging here for years. ‘Depends on what?’ Bauer said.

‘You want a girl? Little boys? A game? A club? Things to put in your body?’

Smart-arse. ‘What about all of the above?’ Bauer said. ‘I hear you people are good at things like that.’

‘My people,’ the taxi driver said. ‘Who would they be?’

‘Don’t get smart,’ Bauer said.

‘Look, I don’t have to take you anywhere,’ the taxi driver said. He slowed the taxi and edged into the emergency stopping lane on the approach to the Bell Street exit. ‘This all right? No charge.’

The driver was small, skinny, the kind with a mop of black hair flopping over black-rimmed glasses. Nothing to him, Bauer thought, but maybe he fancies himself in unarmed combat. He rested his arm along the back of the seat and let his hand drop to the driver’s neck. He felt for the pressure points with his fingers and began to squeeze. With his other hand he steered the taxi as it began to slow. The driver’s eyes rolled back. His body began to droop.