Peter Temple - Shooting Star

I stopped. As I’d drivelled on with this boring rubbish, she’d looked less likely to bolt, more likely to make a polite excuse and leave.

‘The message is this,’ I said. ‘Only have ceramic fillings.’

‘Ceramic? Can you have ceramic fillings?’ She was smiling, not going to bolt, not going to leave.

‘You can have fillings made from anything you like. Titanium, Kevlar, old-fashioned stainless steel. They say you should go for the tusks of departed walruses. Not killed for their tusks, of course. Washed up walruses. Peacefully departed. Recycled.’

Alice laughed, not a big laugh, but on her mouth and in her eyes there was a laugh. I laughed with her, celebrated my own stupid ability to amuse her. In her face, I now saw the resemblance to her father. They were handsome people, the Carsons, and they selected for handsome genes, even if that sometimes meant ending up with handsome people missing the warmth chromosome.

But they could laugh. It was possible. I’d seen two of them laugh. As a sub-species, they had the capacity to laugh. The single-minded pursuit of money, the worship of it, the fear of losing it, these had made redundant, vestigial, almost everything that had once made them social animals. But the ability to laugh, that had some value and it lingered.

Time. Time to speak of the things that the mind does not want spoken of.

I said, ‘So, you touched the wall. And…’

She was more relaxed, she closed her eyes. ‘Repulsive, revolting, the feel of it…I ran out, I didn’t have anything on, I think I was screaming, I gave my mother a terrible fright…’

She opened her eyes.

I was nodding, as if I understood.

She swallowed, swallowed again, looked at me, her face coming to me in brilliant clarity, grey eyes, a sad person, sad forever, nothing could subtract from what had happened to her, nothing could bring her back into the world of people who hadn’t endured what she had.

‘I couldn’t stay there,’ she said, ‘so they moved us, put us in another part of the hotel, the main building.’

‘Adobe,’ I said.

She nodded, looked down.

‘Thank you, Alice,’ I said. ‘You’ve been brave and I admire you.’

She looked up and there were tears in her eyes.

On the way to the Carson compound, waiting to turn, Orlovsky said, ‘Mr Compassion. That’s another side. Sorry I didn’t get to see that side.’

I was looking at the couple in the Mercedes next to us. A woman with a long, pale face was driving, the man next to her was fat and angry, gesticulating. He had rings on all his fingers.

‘You didn’t qualify for compassion,’ I said. ‘You only qualified for a kick up the arse. And that was too late, anyway.’

We were in the underground garage when he said, ‘And now?’

I needed a drink badly, my back needed it. ‘Mark,’ I said. ‘There’s nowhere else .’

Martie Harmon worked for Hayes, Harmon, Calero, a firm of solicitors in South Yarra with an office next to a Thai restaurant.

‘Mark’s been involved with him in a couple of interesting ventures, his so-called associate,’ said Barry, speaking briskly from his car at 7.15 a.m. ‘One was importing caviar from the Caspian, a container load. I gather they paid half in advance, some fabulous sum, and the Russians sent them a container of fish meal. Hold on, I’ve got another call.’

Music, trippling piano music. I ate sourdough toast spread with Normandy butter and bitter Scottish marmalade and watched a gardener, a slim woman dressed for wet weather, choosing flowers from the cutting garden in front of the Garden House. She felt my eyes, turned and nodded a greeting.

Barry came back. ‘Frank, yes, Martie Harmon. Mark and Martie also combined to sell the Indonesians a South African crowd-control device. I don’t know how that went. I’d have thought the Indonesians already had shotguns. I’m indebted to Stephanie for this information. Tom ends up paying and he confides in her.’ ‘And she in you,’ I said, not a clever thing to say.

I could hear the music on his car stereo: a symphony.

‘Something tells me,’ he said, ‘that you may end up knowing more about this family than we would have wanted. Perhaps we should have had you sign a confidentiality agreement.’

‘Take it as signed,’ I said, to make amends.

I was Martie Harmon’s first of the day, no waiting. He was fortyish, short, plump, red-lipped, had opted to confront baldness by shaving his head.

‘Sit down, Mr Calder. How can I be of help?’ He had a warm, welcoming smile.

‘Mark Carson. I’m engaged by the family. They’re worried.’

The smile went and he made a scornful laughing noise. ‘Mark. They’re worried? Believe me, Mark worries lots of people. I no longer have anything to do with Mark. There is nothing I have to say about Mark. I don’t want to discuss Mark. Full stop.’

I looked around the office, at the framed things on the walls: a degree certificate, something with a Rotary cog on it, a graduating class photograph.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, this is a working office.’

I sat absolutely still, hands below the desk, looked him in the eyes, looked down, looked at him again, focusing on the inside back of his skull, didn’t blink.

He couldn’t bear it.

‘What are you, some kind of intimidation? Fuck that, buddy. Fuck the Carsons. I’ll get security in here in thirty seconds flat.’ He picked up his phone.

‘How’d that crowd-control device go?’ I said. ‘I reckon the best way to control crowds is to spray them with Russian fish meal. From the Caspian.’

Martie Harmon replaced the receiver, held both his hands up, pinkies facing me. ‘That’s not funny. That’s why Mark and I are no longer in any way associated. I have believed the lies and I have paid the price. Also I have done nothing wrong or unethical. So, will you go?’

I shook my head. ‘We’ve got off on the wrong footing, Mr Harmon. No one’s accusing you of anything. It’s Mark the family’s concerned about. They can’t contact him in Europe.’

Martie Harmon made a chewing movement and his shoulders relaxed a little. ‘Just as long as it’s understood,’ he said. ‘I have no involvement with the bastard, nil, zip.’

‘Understood,’ I said. ‘His father’s had a threatening phone call. From Poland.’

Martie closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘Mark and the fucking Poles,’ he said. ‘And they’re not even Poles, they’re Russians. The Poles are the frontmen. They’re the ones you meet, the ones that went to college in America.’

‘You know about this Polish business?’

‘Oh yes. Mark came to me with this crap about building a film studio in Warsaw. I told him, Mark, are you mad? This is the fucking Russian Mafia, they kill people they don’t like by putting a helium hose up their arse and blowing them up till they float away and pop.’

‘What was the deal?’

He jiggled his hands at me, like someone with palsy. ‘The Russians wanted a two million dollar, that’s U.S., line of credit. They don’t intend to draw on it, what it’s for is to bring in the other investors, sucker them in. It’s for show. Then when they invest and the fucking studio’s built, Mark owns twenty per cent of it, plus he gets twenty per cent interest on the two million no one’s ever had to put up. Fucking dream deal, right?’

‘Why would you build a film studio in Poland?’

‘Porn. The Russian Mafia wants to take over the world porn industry. They can supply women by the planeload. Ukrainians, Chechens, Tartars. All colours, shapes and sizes. They’ll do anything, all the things the girls in the West won’t do. And you can forget about your fucking safe sex. Anything goes. Mark was really taken with the idea. There’s a weird side to him, I don’t know. He can give you the creeps.’