Peter Temple - Black Tide

We said goodbye. Back in my office, I stared out of the window, listening to the industrial noises coming from across the road, thinking about Gary and the TransQuik connection. Did it exist? If it did, why would they go to such lengths to deny it? Who had reported Gary missing?

I got out my notebook, found the number on the card the Feds left with Clive Wendell, dialled it. It rang briefly, then blipped again.

‘Offices on Collins,’ a man said. ‘The number you’ve dialled isn’t presently in use.’

‘What is Offices on Collins?’

‘We provide full office facilities for limited or long-term rental.’

‘Can you tell me who was renting that number on April 5 this year? I may have the wrong number.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ I heard computer keys clicking. ‘The rental was for two days in the name of J. A. Ashton.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘Sorry, sir, I don’t have that information. It was a cash transaction.’

So much for agents Carmody and Mildren.

The phone rang as it touched the cradle.

‘Jack, Tony Rinaldi. Forget the other call. What about today? Lunchtime?’

Tony Rinaldi came trundling down the riverside path towards me, the shortest member of a group of four trundlers. He was wearing a T-shirt saying Even the Short Arm of the Law is Long and he was a lot thinner than when I’d last seen him. Losing your wife to a librarian can have that effect.

I stood up. Tony saw me, panted something to his pack and slowed to a walk.

‘Jack,’ he gasped. He didn’t shake hands, sank onto the bench next to me, short hairy legs stuck out. I sat down, let him recover, offered him the plastic bottle of mineral water he’d suggested I bring if I was going to interrupt him before he got to his watering hole.

He drank half the bottle, dribbled some onto his chest, panted for a while. Finally, he took a deep breath. ‘Thanks, mate.’ Ran his hand through dark thinning hair. ‘Jesus, worst thing I ever did getting in with that mob. Bastards wait till you’re so clapped out you can’t breathe, then they pick up the pace, start asking you questions.’

He had another large draught of expensive water, took another deep breath. ‘So, Klostermann Gardier. How’s the name come your way?’

I told him. ‘Gary calls himself a security adviser and one of his clients appears to be Klostermann Gardier. I’m clutching at straws here.’

‘Gary connected with TransQuik?’

‘He worked for them for about eight years. Left in ’88. Security. He’s an ex-cop.’

‘Let’s walk,’ Tony said, pushing his way off the bench. ‘Bit of a mystery man, weren’t you? Didn’t you marry one of the Ling girls?’

‘Very briefly. Frances. She’s married to a surgeon now. General surgeon. Cut off anything.’

He laughed, still short of breath. ‘Frances and Stephanie Ling. I used to call them the Ling Erection Company.’

We headed for Princes Bridge, talking about student days. I wondered what the older generation of barristers thought of colleagues who walked around the streets in running shorts and sweat-soaked T-shirts with undignified slogans. Not a great deal, I would imagine.

On the bridge, Tony said, ‘Drew tell you I quit the DPP’s office?’

‘I read about it.’

‘Ten years I put in and here I am starting again at the bar. Like a twenty-two-year-old. Fat and balding twenty-two-year-old. Well, less fat than I was at twenty-two, actually. Plus my fucking wife’s walked off and the bitch gets half of everything.’

We crossed Swanston Street, went down Flinders. The mild sunshine was gone, dark clouds gathering. In the shadow of the buildings, the day was cooling quickly.

I sidestepped a large couple holding hands and gazing in wonder at the bustle. Everything about them said down from Dereel for the day.

‘Christ, it’s freezing,’ said Tony. ‘I’ve got to go to Sydney in an hour, can’t catch cold. Bugger this.’

He stepped into the street and waved.

Never mind that the cab was going the wrong way.

We got in. ‘Corner William and Little Bourke,’ said Tony.

‘Have to go round,’ said the driver. ‘Can’t turn.’ He had long blond hair in a ponytail, stylish dark glasses.

‘Whatever,’ said Tony, hugging himself. ‘Go up Russell.’

‘I can do this,’ said the driver.

‘Right. Not automatic that cab drivers know the way to anywhere.’

‘Believe me,’ said the driver. ‘This is automatic.’

‘Klostermann Gardier.’ Tony looked at me, brown eyes, soft, intelligent eyes. He turned his head to the window. ‘You’re a friend of Greer’s,’ he said. ‘He’s a good bugger. My advice about these people is to walk away, Rene.’

He frowned. ‘Christ, that was Russell. What are you doing?’

‘Next one’s quicker,’ said the driver.

Tony leaned over, put his mouth behind the man’s ear. ‘How can the next one be quicker?’

‘I’m a cab driver,’ the man said. ‘I know.’

Tony sat back. ‘That logic,’ he said, ‘has become less and less compelling.’

The driver turned left into Bourke, into a jam. ‘Oh Jesus,’ Tony shouted, ‘what the fuck are you doing, there’s a fucking mall down there, go right next, right into Russell, can you grasp that, you idiot?’

‘Excited,’ said the driver, taking both hands off the wheel. ‘No need. Shortcut. Believe me, I know what I’m doing.’

Tony didn’t believe. He directed the driver every metre of the way until we were outside his chambers in William Street.

‘So,’ said the driver, not looking around. ‘Was that so bad? Here we are, no problem. Ten bucks fifty. Coupla coffees and a focaccia.’

Tony looked at me. We got out the kerbside door. I found seven dollars. Tony opened the passenger door and put the money on the seat. ‘No problem?’ he said. ‘Here’s seven bucks, no problem. Be fucking grateful I pay you anything.’

‘Have a good day,’ said the driver. ‘Cunt.’

I sat in a comfortable chair in Tony’s panelled office and read an old issue of the Australian Law Journal while he showered. My ignorance of the law was disconcerting. Could I have forgotten that much? To forget, you must first know.

Tony came out, pink, combed, dark trousers, black shoes, knotting a spotted tie over a seagull-white shirt, carrying a towel.

‘What happened to Stephanie? The younger sister, wasn’t she?’

I nodded. I didn’t like going back this far.

‘She was a spunk,’ Tony said. ‘I remember she got in with that student paper crowd, superior little up-themselves arseholes.’

‘She married an artist.’

‘Who? I’d know him?’

‘I doubt it. He killed himself.’

‘Paintings be worth more then. Well, where do I start? I go back a good way with TransQuik. Before Levesque and Co. I did a bit of work for the company, they were buying up the odd collapsing trucking business. Manny Lousada, he was the owner then, bright bloke but perverse. He had a talent for the complex. Nothing was allowed to be simple. You arrive at a fairly simple, standard arrangement whereby you’d do a deal in two, maybe three stages. You show them your thing, they show you theirs. No. Not good enough. Manny wants six stages with fiddly bits at every stage and impossible delaying and opt-out clauses of all kinds, all for no discernible reason.’

He started rubbing his hair with the towel. ‘One day, Manny rings me, he’s had an approach, a terrific approach. Foreign investor wants to buy forty per cent of the company. For five million bucks. That values TransQuik at twelve-and-a-half million, which is heading for twenty times earnings. Simply off with the fairies.’

Tony sat down behind the file-laden desk and took two red apples out of a drawer. ‘Want one? I’m on the apple and chicken soup diet. Murder but it works.’