Peter Temple - Shooting Star

‘What the hell’s goin on?’

Pat Carson was at the door, leaning on a walking stick. Standing, grey suit loose on him, he looked closer to his age, but not much. He looked at Tom.

‘Don’t bother to tell the old man what’s happenin? That’s the attitude, is it? I have to come to find out?’

He turned back towards his study. ‘Frank, come and tell me,’ he said over his shoulder.

I waited until he was well away, then I said to the Carson brothers, ‘Would you like me to do that?’

Barry said, ‘Yes. Thank you, Frank.’

Noyce cleared his throat. ‘A sports bag,’ he said, pride put aside for the moment. ‘There must be a sports bag somewhere.’

‘Tell Lauren to find one,’ said Tom, tone a little less military this time.

I went down the passage, knocked on the open door. Pat was behind his desk again, chair swivelled sideways. The shutters were open and he was looking out at a paved, walled courtyard, a secret place, with low hedges and lemon trees growing in big pots. Without turning, he gestured for me to enter.

Standing, I told him about the phone call.

‘What about lettin her go?’

‘Tom asked. He said: “You’ll hear from us.”’

Pat swivelled to face me, rubbed his jaw, studied me. Finally, he said, ‘Don’t be a policeman tomorrow, Frank. No police work. Just give em the money.’

I nodded. ‘I’m in a giving mood.’

‘And on the money subject, the advance on the fee, Graham give you that?’

‘Yes.’ It was in my jacket pocket: a hundred new hundred-dollar notes in an envelope. I didn’t want to but I said, ‘Thank you.’

He waved a hand dismissively, a hand like a big plucked wing. ‘Mind you do what the bastards tell you. Nothin more. Then we’ll settle with em. By God, we will.’

Two hundred thousand dollars in fifties in a sports bag doesn’t weigh much, a few kilos. In the VIP carpark under the Great Southern Stand, tense in the stomach, I took the soft-leather Louis Vuitton bag out of the boot of Noyce’s Mercedes, felt for his tiny mobile phone in my inside jacket pocket.

‘Mr Calder?’ A fair-haired young man in a business suit, club tie. He put out a hand. ‘I’m Denzil Hobbes. I’ve been asked to meet you.’

Noyce had arranged the parking and the reception. It seemed a Carson company had a corporate box in the stand. Orlovsky was doing it harder. Not a Mercedes but his old Holden Premier, not a VIP parking spot but a long walk from across the river to a public entrance.

‘It’s pretty much a full house,’ Hobbes said. ‘I’ve got someone holding a seat for you. We can go up in the lift.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll walk. Just show me the stairs.’

‘They’re ramps actually,’ he said. ‘One in ten incline, very easy climbing. You haven’t been here before?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll show you the one to take. Ramps take eight abreast. In an emergency, we can clear the stand in twelve minutes.’

I nodded approvingly. It would be nice if people behaved that way, serried ranks of the terrified moving steadily downwards, eight abreast.

‘I’ll give you a card,’ said Hobbes. ‘Ring me if you need anything. Anything at all. When you get to the top, your seat is to the right. First seat to the right. Not the best view. The aisle seat in the back row. Just tap the man in it on the shoulder and introduce yourself. He’s expecting you. Obviously.’

Obviously. This was Carson money talking.

‘What about my colleague?’ I said.

‘He’s up there. To your left, also on the aisle.’

Traffic was light on the way up. On the long way up. At the top, I came out into the pale grey afternoon light to a stunning scene, thousands upon thousands of people around the green circle, the stand seemingly leaning over it. Then a huge explosion of sound. Something had happened on the field, some event dramatic enough to cause all mouths to open.

CARLTON 38, COLLINGWOOD 17 said the scoreboard. Ten minutes from half-time.

I found the seat, tapped the occupant on the shoulder. Another young man in a suit, a small galaxy of spots on his broad brow. ‘Calder,’ I said.

He too wanted to shake hands, gave his name: Sean Rourke. Polite staff, well-groomed, the corporate box tenants would expect that.

When he’d gone, I looked left, looked away. Orlovsky was wearing a filthy anorak and holding a radio to his right ear. The Carsons hadn’t been happy about him coming along. I took out the mobile phone, held it in my left hand, made sure I knew which button to press when it vibrated. Then, a girl’s life at stake, I tried to concentrate on the game. Collingwood were playing a strange brand of football, going sideways, backwards, kicking to empty spaces, no central nervous system in control.

‘Sweet Jesus, convent girls, want it, don’t want it, they get it, they don’t know where to fucken put it,’ said the man next to me, a Collingwood supporter, lean-faced, mostly unshaven, with scar tissue under his right eye and a nose set askew. He caught my eye. ‘What I reckon,’ he said to me, blast of raw alcohol in the breath, ‘piss-poor coachin, that’s what I reckon.’

‘Me too,’ I said. ‘That’s what I reckon.’ Why did he assume my support of Collingwood? It dawned on me: there were only two colours on display around us: jumpers, beanies, scarves, huge Mad Hatter’s Teaparty hats, all in the sacred black and white, sin and purity, evil and innocence, the colours of certainty. This was Collingwood country.

‘Get this inya,’ said the skew-nosed man, warmed by our mutual contempt for the coach. He was offering a litre plastic bottle of an orange-brown liquid. I took a swig, felt tears start in my eyes, a prickling in my scalp follicles.

‘Bottla Bundy in there,’ said the man, not taking his eyes off the game. ‘Carn ya fucken sheilas!’

Carlton were all over Collingwood until half-time, kicking another goal and a behind just before the siren.

We all stood up.

‘Jesus,’ said my new friend, ‘just lie down and let the mongrels piss on em, that’d be better.’ He drank some more from the plastic bottle. ‘Speakin of piss, I kin taste it. Comin?’

‘I’m okay,’ I said.

He squeezed past me. ‘Watch the stuff, mate,’ he said, cocking his head at his army-surplus canvas rucksack.

The tiny telephone vibrated in my hand, a sensuous feeling.

I pressed the button.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Are you where you should be?’ The electronic voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, this is what you do…’ You do what you’re told to do. Afterwards, the crowd didn’t hinder me as I walked up the stand, bent on leaving the stadium as quickly as possible. On the last ramp before the carpark, I took off the beanie I’d paid a startled fan fifty dollars for, dropped it in a bin.

I didn’t have any plans that included a Collingwood beanie.

‘You might’ve hung onto a few thousand,’ Orlovsky said, getting into the Mercedes with his briefcase, bringing in cold air, brushing rain off his scalp. ‘Honesty’s a much overrated virtue.’

‘Not when it’s the only one you’ve got,’ I said. ‘What’d you get?’

I had just finished my call to Noyce. We were on the St Kilda beachfront, near the lifesaving club, rain blowing off the bay. Only a few people out: two men in bright rain gear walking a fat and splay-footed black Labrador; an old woman, scarf tied under her chin above layers of sagging clothing; a small and threatening squad of inline skaters, indifferent to weather and fellow-humans and gravity.

‘Nothing. Call’s from a payphone at Royal Melbourne Hospital.’

I was dispirited, watching the skaters. They were coming up at speed behind the men with the dog, in formation, two tight ranks of three. Just when it seemed the front rank had to crash into the walkers, it parted, two left, one right, second rank following suit, going around the men and coalescing again like water flowing around a rock.