Peter Temple - Bad Debts

‘This is just a little job Linda thinks a lawyer might be useful for. I’m not quite sure why. Did she tell you what it’s about?’

‘Something about planning. Sounded like a cock and bull story to me.’

He finished his drink and turned to the serving counter.

He took down a bottle of Gilbey’s gin and poured half a glass. Then he added a dash of tonic and stirred the mixture with a big finger.

‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘I’m not supposed to drink. Fuck ’em. What else is there?’ He took a sip and licked his lips. ‘She thought a lawyer might be useful, hey? Be the first time. Cabinet was full of bloody suburban lawyers. Think they’re the bloody chosen race.’

‘We’re looking at decisions like the one to close the Hoagland estate,’ I said. ‘It leaked out in May 1984. We’re interested in what happened in Cabinet.’

Pixley put his glass on the bar, put his elbows on the counter and looked me in the eyes.

‘This is about Yarrabank, right? What’s the shithole going to be called now?’

‘Yarra Cove,’ I said.

‘Yarra fucking Cove. That what it’s about?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you lot trying to do?’

‘It’s just a general piece of planning.’

He gave me a smile of pure disbelief. ‘Planning shit, Jack,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dealing with the fucking media for forty years. Ms Hillier thought she’d have a better chance of getting me to tip a bucket if she sent you.’ He leant forward until his face was a handspan from mine. ‘I’ve got it, haven’t I?’

I sat back on my stool. There wasn’t going to be a general discussion about planning. ‘Well, I suppose there’s a public service element in shafting the shaftworthy.’

Pixley laughed, a throat-clearing sound. ‘I can think of a couple of dozen shaftworthies,’ he said. ‘So ask me a question.’

I took out my notebook. ‘Who made the decision to close Hoagland?’

He shook his head in mock admiration. ‘You’ve got good timing, Jack. I was looking at ’84 in my diaries the day before yesterday. The answer is Lance Pitman. He convinced the Premier that shutting the hellhole was a good idea. Stop all the publicity about rapes and fires and general mayhem in the place. Thought he had it all stitched up, usual breezy fait a-fucking-ccompli style. Then he got to Cabinet and some people weren’t happy.’

‘But the Premier overruled them?’

‘No. Harker didn’t try too hard to get his way. There wasn’t a decision taken then. Pitman looked like he’d been bitten in a blow job. He couldn’t believe Harker wouldn’t push it through.’

Pixley paused to drink. ‘Stage two. After the meeting, someone leaked it that Cabinet had approved closing the place. Next afternoon, we had the usual rent-a-lefty crowd outside Parliament screaming “Save Hoagland”. Bloody unions making threats. And some cop jockey rides his horse over a twat in a wheelchair.’

‘So at that point the Premier could simply have said it wasn’t going to happen? Hadn’t been approved by Cabinet.’

‘And that’s what he was going to say, mate. That’s what I advised him to do. I heard him tell Pitman that was what he was going to do. He was nervous as hell about the protests. Never expected a reaction like that. Walking up and down in his office saying, “That fucking little bitch”. We had an election coming up, all the bleeding hearts in the party on the phone to him saying we had to soften our image after the way we chainsawed the bloody power workers. Last thing anyone wanted was all the clergy and the social welfare industry getting on heat. Next thing you find bloody independents coming up in the marginals like pricks at a pyjama party. What Harker was scared of was that the party would lose the election and blame it on him closing bloody Hoagland. He wasn’t going to close it in a fit.’

‘But he did?’

‘Well, everything changed in a flash when the Jeppeson woman got hit by that prick.’

‘What happened in Cabinet?’

‘The woman was running the whole protest single-handed. We didn’t know that. Once she was gone, it just fizzled out. Meantime, Pitman’s people are putting it around that the Premier’s authority is on the line, battle for control of Cabinet, leadership challenge brewing, all that sort of shit.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Harker jumped on all the people who’d opposed closing Hoagland. We had a Cabinet meeting and now everybody’s crapping on about we can’t have mob rule, need a show of support for the Premier, in the public interest to close the dungheap anyway, that sort of shit.’

‘So Lance Pitman won.’

‘That’s right. Touch and go for the bastard, though. That Jeppeson woman came within a rat’s foreskin of getting the closure stopped.’ Pixley started coughing and only stopped when he took a mouthful of gin and tonic. ‘Jesus, if it’s not one thing it’s another,’ he said weakly. ‘Can’t even take a piss any more without splashing my boots.’

‘And when the estate was sold, there was a bit of a barney over that, wasn’t there?’

Pixley studied me for a while. ‘You could say that. In spades.’

I said, ‘Pitman wanted to sell it without calling for tenders.’

‘That’s right. Stank like last week’s roadkill.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Well, people who knew Pitman didn’t swallow all the bullshit about we’ll never get an offer this high again if we put it out to tender until doomsday.’

‘What did they know about Pitman?’

He studied me some more, the tic going in his eye. Then he knocked back his drink and busied himself fixing another one. He poured me a beer in a clean glass without asking.

When he handed it to me, he said, ‘Let me tell you something about my life, Jack. I joined the party with my dad when he came back from the war. I was seventeen. I just missed the war. I wanted to go, lie about my age, be a hero, fight the bloody Japs. Mum wouldn’t hear of it. And I couldn’t bring myself to go without her blessing.’

He took a sip and studied his glass. ‘Four blokes in my class went. Just the one came back. You couldn’t recognise him. Just bones. A skeleton. Bobby Morrisey was his name, little fellow. Never well again in his life. Fucking Japs. There were lots of blokes like that around where we lived. Think the local MP would do anything for them? Not on your bloody life. Too busy fighting factional wars to give a bugger about the voters. Well, I ended up taking that seat from the bastard. No-one thought it was possible. There wasn’t even a branch of the party there when I joined. When I got into Parliament I did what I could for Bobby Morrisey and the others. Felt I owed it to them. Something personal, like they’d gone instead of me. Nonsense that, but there you are.’

I nodded. I didn’t see where this was going and time was running out before Mrs Pixley closed the proceedings.

Pixley did some more coughing. ‘What I need is a fucking smoke,’ he said. ‘Don’t have one on you? No. Bloody woman searches the house like the Gestapo. Bugger that. Thing is, Jack, I found it wasn’t an unusual thing to do, look after people. Sure, there were a lot of toffee-nosed dickheads on our side. But they weren’t in there to feather their own bloody nests, not in those years. That’s why I couldn’t understand people like Lance Pitman when they came in, when I realised what the cunts wanted out of politics.’

He looked away for a while, down the bar. Then he jerked his head around and said, ‘Nice house this, eh Jack? Cost a bit more than my super, you’ll say to yourself. That bastard Pitman put it around that it came out of graft. He’s still putting it around, every chance he gets. Well, I’ll tell you where it came out of. It came out of me mum’s will, that’s where. And she got it from Uncle Les when he died in Queensland. I’m not saying the old bastard was straight. I’m not saying he got it by the sweat of his brow. There’s a lot of stories about him. But it came to me out of the cleanest hands on earth.’