Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

The photograph showed a serious-looking young woman of about twenty-four, tall, slender and very beautiful.

‘If you want me to keep an eye out for your niece, I may need this photograph,’ Harrigan said.

Ibrahim nodded wordlessly.

‘Would you be prepared to give me some information?’ Harrigan asked. ‘If I give you my word that I won’t involve or mention you in any way, would you tell me who the managing agent for this block of units is?’

Ibrahim looked at him for a few moments.

‘If you would wait,’ he said, and went into the kitchen, returning with a fridge magnet in his hand. ‘This is our agent. He leaves these magnets in our mailbox for us. It would be more useful if he fixed the plumbing when we asked him to. Please take it if you want.’

Four Square Real Estate, Haldon Street, Lakemba. A private agency, not a franchise. Harrigan finished his coffee.

‘I can promise you won’t be troubled by anyone, Mr Ibrahim, and if I find anything about your niece, I’ll be in touch,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your time.’

Ibrahim rose to his feet. ‘It was an honour to have you as our guest,’ he said formally, and saw him to the door.

In most meetings like this, Harrigan had rarely been treated with the kind of courtesy he had received today. Despite this, the chances that he would find any information concerning Ibrahim’s niece were slim to say the least. Grimly, the ex-policeman in him said she was probably already dead and most likely Ibrahim thought that too. He drove to Haldon Street to see where the next step might take him.

Four Square Real Estate was a single, narrow shopfront in the main commercial precinct of Lakemba, almost invisible with its dark window. Harrigan cruised past it, then parked off the street on the other side of the road. He was about to cross over when the door to the agency opened and an old foe stepped out: Tony Ponticelli junior, a middle-aged man in a sharp suit, slipping on a pair of sunglasses. Harrigan stopped where he was but Tony junior didn’t seem to have seen him. He walked to a red Ferrari parked just up the street, and drove off.

To put it mildly, Four Square’s presentation to the world was low-key. Property Managers, Rental Properties , said the sign on the brown-painted window. Even so, there was no display of properties for sale or rent. Harrigan went inside. A drab-looking woman sat at the desk. What are you doing in here? her eyes said.

‘Is the manager in?’ he asked.

‘No. Why do you want to see him?’

Harrigan looked around. The reception area was a small space, cheaply furnished. Everything he saw suggested that anyone who walked in here on the off chance would be told to go away. To his right was a door which he guessed led to the manager’s office.

‘What’s his name?’ he asked.

‘What’s yours?’ she replied as the door opened.

‘Gail, get this info written up, would you-fuck!’

‘Eddie Grippo,’ Harrigan said. ‘I heard you were out. This is where you’ve come to rest, is it?’

The short man in the doorway looked sick. The papers he was carrying dangled from his hand.

‘Paul Harrigan. What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘I think we should have a little chat, mate.’

Gail’s hand was hovering over the phone.

‘Leave it,’ Eddie said, and when she hesitated, shouted, ‘Leave it! For fuck’s sake! Don’t !’

‘You want to do your job,’ Harrigan said to her, ‘keep your mouth shut. You didn’t see me.’

Her face went blank and she went back to whatever she’d been doing.

Eddie’s office was as run-down as the rest of the shop, with a dead pot plant in one corner. He had put on weight since Harrigan had last seen him, his girth nudging the desk. In gaol some prisoners made sure they stayed fit, they worked at it like men possessed. Eddie hadn’t. All that muscle had gone to fat. Age was catching up with him the same way it was catching up with everyone, all the way to the hair on his head, which, unlike the rest of him, was thinner.

‘What do you want, Harrigan? Why should I give you the time of day? You’re nobody now.’

‘Look at you,’ Harrigan replied, unmoved. ‘You’re old. You couldn’t take on anyone any more. You want people to forget you, don’t you? So here you are in this shithole, keeping your head down. I can think of a lot of people who’d want to know where you are right now. In gaol you had people watching your arse. Out here you’ve got no one. You might open the door one day and find someone else besides me waiting for you. What was Tony Ponticelli junior doing here? I just saw him leave.’

‘The whole fucking thing’s legitimate, for fuck’s sake.’

‘Keep talking, mate. You make me laugh.’

‘It’s the property. All we do is manage the family property. That’s it.’

‘What was Tony junior doing here?’

‘Don’t you know? You don’t, do you? You’re out of the loop.’ Eddie grinned. ‘Tony senior’s got fucking Alzheimer’s. Word is he’s getting loonier every day. Tony junior runs the business now.’

Harrigan knew the business all too well: extortion, enforcement, murder. The Ponticellis were the people to hire if you wanted anything like that done. They provided, with gusto. Once they’d been into anything-sex, drugs, any kind of contraband, corrupt property developments, shadier business deals, blackmail. Anything that could turn a dollar, which they had also done very successfully. Once, they’d probably had a higher turnover and owned more assets than some well-known companies. But the operations Harrigan had run had cut them down to size. He had gaoled their lieutenants, like Eddie, along with Tony senior’s brother, and seen others get shot in gang wars. After that, they had never recovered their territory. There was no such thing as a vacuum in the crime world. Other gangs, other nationalities, newer to the scene, had moved in.

Harrigan’s own involvement with the Ponticellis had teetered a little too close at times. There were one or two personal matters between him and Tony senior, which were another good reason for the old man to hate his guts, even more perhaps than for destroying his empire.

‘Tony junior doesn’t give a shit about you, mate,’ Harrigan said. ‘You’re not his man. You’re his dad’s. He’s doing you a favour, isn’t he?’

‘They need someone,’ Eddie muttered.

‘But it doesn’t have to be you. You’re a favour to his dad, aren’t you? Cause Tony junior any trouble and you can sleep in the street. You can give me some information. Is Tony senior thinking he might settle a few scores with me before he carks it?’

‘Why? Are you frightened?’

The old Eddie was coming out. Behind that soft expanse of stomach was the same hard man, the one who got a kick out of taking a knife to other people. He still had that look, the one that said he didn’t care if you died in front of him just so long as he had the pleasure of doing it. All that poison was still in his head.

‘If you think I’m frightened of you, mate, take me on and see who walks away at the end. It won’t be you. You didn’t answer my question.’

‘If he is, he hasn’t told me,’ Eddie said. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’

‘The white building near the railway line between Wiley Park and Lakemba. It’s a block of units. Tell me about it.’

‘Fairview Mansions,’ Eddie said.

‘I didn’t see any sign.’

‘It fell down. That’s not family property. It belongs to someone else.’

‘So what are you doing with it?’

‘Fucked if I know. It’s just on the books, isn’t it?’

‘Who owns it?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Fuck,’ Eddie muttered and turned to an ancient-looking computer. ‘Shillingworth Trust. I don’t know who they are. According to this fucking thing, that’s all we have of theirs.’