Peter Temple: Black Tide

‘My mother.’

‘Right. Six months later they’re married. Anyhow, you’d know all this.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t know any of it.’

Des sniffed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s the story. Anyway, come about a will. Lady across the street says I should have a will. You do wills?’

‘I can do a will.’

‘What’s it cost, a will?’

‘Wills are free.’

‘Free? What’s free in the world?’

‘Wills. The last free thing.’

Des looked uneasy. ‘Not lookin for charity,’ he said. ‘Pay me way.’

‘Not offering charity. Plenty of lawyers will do you a will free. They make their money when you die. Winding up your estate.’

‘Right,’ he said, thoughtful. ‘Hang on. How’d they get the money out of dead blokes?’

‘Not the dead blokes. The people they leave things to, they get the money out of them.’

He nodded. ‘Fair enough. Well, I need a will.’

I took down the particulars. It was straightforward: no existing will, everything to go to someone called Dorothea Joyce Skinner.

‘No kids?’ I asked.

‘There’s Gary.’

‘Only child?’

Des sat back in his chair, rubbed his jaw. ‘First boy died. Brain thing, matter of hours. Nothin anyone could do. Still, think if we’d done somethin sooner, might’ve bin different. The wife took that to the grave. Anyway, Gary come along, bit of a shock, I can tell you. Past forty then. Woulda bin fifteen years between the boys. Don’t know if that…well, Gary’s rubbish. Smart but rubbish. The smart’s from the wife’s side, bugger all to do with the bloody Connors.

Keegans. Schoolies, the two other sisters. The brother was on the ships, officer on the P &O. Didn’t take to him myself, little beard. Always doin this.’

Des clawed his chin gently with his right hand. ‘Got on the nerves somethin painful.’

‘So you don’t want to include Gary?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll need an executor,’ I said. ‘Someone you can trust to make sure it’s all done properly when you’re gone. I take it Gary wouldn’t be the choice.’

‘Bloody oath.’

‘Someone else you trust.’

He thought. ‘All dead,’ he said, ‘everybody I trusted. What about you? Reckon I can trust Bill’s boy?’

‘You can but you’ll probably outlive me. What are you planning to leave? Own your house?’

‘Buggered old place, fetch a bit though. Next door, bloody chimney’s all that’s holdin it up, but these two girls give a hundred and fifty grand.’ He paused, lines between his brows deepening. ‘Anyway, wife left the house to Gary. You lawyers collect debts too?’

‘Some debts, yes.’

Des looked down for a while, hands on the briefcase, left thumb rubbing the knuckles of the right hand. ‘Gary’s got sixty thousand dollars belongs to me,’ he said. ‘Me sister leave it to me. From the sale of her property. Bastard come over, first time for years, come over and talk me into it. Mad, I musta bin mad. Mind you, I had the flu somethin chronic, thought I was dyin, couldn’t think straight. Umpteenth time he done me. Well, done the family. He’s a bloke gets his mum to lend him the bit she got from his Nanna Keegan. Six grand I think it was. Lot of money to us. Gone.’

‘You lent him sixty thousand dollars?’

‘Three weeks, he tells me, double the money, guaranteed. Knew I had a bit cause the bugger got twenty grand hisself from the old girl. Must’ve done that dough pretty smart.’

‘What was he going to do with your money?’

‘Shares. Goin through the roof. Mate of his had the mail on it.’

‘Any contract?’

‘What?’

‘Lend money, the thing is you should have an agreement written down. Says how much, when it has to be paid back, that kind of thing.’

He shook his head. ‘Give him a cheque.’

‘Des, how does a man who doesn’t have a wonderful opinion of his son’s character hand over sixty grand?’

He put fingers through his hair, teenage hair, fingers swollen like leaves of some desert plant. ‘Way I felt that day, I’d’ve given the bugger anything to get him to go away.’

‘When was this?’

‘Two months ago. Bastard’s got the answering machine on.’

‘Maybe he’s forgotten, gone on holiday.’

Des sniffed. ‘Forget he owes me sixty grand? Pig’s arse. Bastard’s lyin low.’

‘Let me be clear on this. Gary owns the house you live in?’

‘The wife left it to Gary but I thought I could live there until…y’know. Now this fella from the bank comes around. He says Gary took another mortgage on the house. Eighty thousand bucks. And he hasn’t paid anything for more than six months. So they’re gonna sell the house. He says Gary told em, “Go for ya life.’’’

I whistled. ‘Des, how did your wife do this in her will? She should have left the house to you for your lifetime and arranged things so that it passed on to Gary after you were gone. She didn’t do that?’

He shook his head. ‘Left it to Gary.’

‘Who did your wife’s will?’

‘Bloke Gary sent. Lawyer he knew. He come to see her in the hospital and told her how to do it.’

I closed my eyes and said, ‘Oh shit.’ When I opened them, Des was looking at me with concern.

‘You all right?’ he said.

‘What’s Gary do?’

‘Beats me. He was a copper. That didn’t last. Reckon he resigned. I reckon they give him the arse. Then he had a job with some transport bunch. Then I don’t know. Got one of them German cars, cost more than a house. Lives in a flat in bloody Toorak, know that, got the address. Got the bloody keys too.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Give em to me that day when he come smoodgin around for the lend. Dad this and Dad that. Dad, d’ya mind hangin on to me spare keys, case I lose mine?’

‘This was before the man from the bank came round?’

‘Oh, yeah. Don’t think I’d’ve lent the bugger the money if I knew he’d got a mortgage on his mum’s house, do ya?’

I didn’t say anything. Des looked down at his hands again. He wanted something from me. I wanted to give him something.

‘I could write him a letter,’ I said. ‘Lawyer’s letter. Tell him we want the money or else.’

‘Or else what?’

‘Or else we’ll institute proceedings for the recovery of the debt.’

‘That any good?’

I scratched my head. It wasn’t itchy. Vestigial animal body language revealing doubt. ‘Depends,’ I said. ‘Works with some.’

‘Won’t work with Gary,’ said Des with absolute certainty. ‘Brass balls.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘not much one can do otherwise.’

Silence. Des had the disappointed look on his face again. Finally, he said, ‘Go around to his place and see if the bastard’s still livin there. That’s what I’d do if I could.’

‘We could go around to where he lives,’ I said.

‘You and me?’

‘I could drive you around there.’

‘No,’ said Des. ‘Not your problem. Just came to make me will.’ He never took his eyes off me.

‘Enjoy a drive,’ I said. ‘You could tell me a bit more about my old man.’

He brightened. ‘Bill Irish,’ he said. ‘Stories I could tell you.’

‘Tuesday. About 10 a.m. Give me your address. I’ll pick you up.’

‘Jack,’ said the voice on the office answering machine. ‘Ring me. You never ring me, you shit.’

I didn’t ring her. No phone call to my sister, Rosa, lasts less than half an hour and, from the canyons of Fitzroy, the beer was calling. I was still tired, sagging from my two weeks looking for the alibi witnesses who could save Cyril Wootton’s client Brendan O’Grady.

But.

My days wandering through the toxic wasteland of Tony Ulasewicz’s life would keep Brendan out of jail for a crime of which he was certainly innocent.