Peter Temple - Bad Debts

Pixley lapsed back into coughing. His eyes were streaming. The big bar clock said 12.15. I’d have to come back. I gestured and made to stand up. He waved me down.

‘Sit. I’m not done. Pitman. I’m talking about Pitman. You want to know about him? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

I nodded.

‘This is all off the record, right? That bloody newspaper even suggests I’m a source, you’ll find out I’ve still got friends, understand me?’

I nodded again.

‘Yes, well, Lance Pitman. Mr Lucky, we used to call him. No bigger disgrace to the party ever walked. It means nothing to him, dogshit. He was a fucking little real estate agent out there in Allenby when he saw the whole place was changing. All the basketweavers and potmakers and bloody unemployed architects making houses out of mudcakes were moving back to Carlton and the place was filling up with young people with kids, big mortgages. Next thing he’s joined the party, he’s branch secretary, he’s signed on hundreds of these beancounters and computer salesmen. Before you look the cunt’s in Parliament. He’d have joined the Nazi Party if he thought it would carry Lance Pitman to glory.’

Behind me, Jackie Pixley said, ‘Lunch is served, Kevin. You’ll have to excuse us, Mr Irish.’ Her voice was as cold as the wind on Station Pier.

Pixley’s eyes narrowed. ‘Leave us alone, woman,’ he said. ‘It’ll be closing time for me soon e-bloody-nough. And get me my diary for 1980.’

I heard her turn on her heel on the polished boards. It made a squeak. We sat in silence. Inside a minute she was back, slamming a leatherbound book down on the bar and leaving. Squeak.

‘Nice girl,’ Pixley said. ‘Met her on the plane to Europe after Ellen shot through. My second wife, that was. She couldn’t stand being alone. Took to fucking plumbers, electricians, any bloke in overalls with a tool. Now Jackie can’t bear that I can’t go out much. And the bloody people around here don’t want to know us. Christ knows what that’ll lead to.’

‘I can come back,’ I said.

‘Bugger that. I’m warmed up. How’s your drink? I’ll give you another one.’

When he’d poured the drinks, he said, ‘Anyway, the bastard went around brown-nosing every living thing in the caucus. We get into office in ’76 and Pitman’s in Cabinet. Minister for Police. That’s a laugh. He should’ve been the first one arrested. But they liked him there, the cops. He made a lot of cop friends. They know a shonk when they see one. He howled like a dingo when Harker moved him to Housing.’

I didn’t have time for a complete history of the Harker government. ‘About Yarrabank,’ I said.

He ignored the hint. ‘What the bastard really wanted was Planning,’ he said. ‘He’d have put on lipstick and a party frock and sucked off the whole caucus for Planning. But not even Harker was stupid enough to give it to him. Not then, anyway. Later on, they were like bumboys.’

I said, ‘Why did he want it so badly?’

Pixley looked at me sadly. ‘Come on, Jack. Where’ve you been? Cause that’s where the big graft is. That’s where the big boys play.’

‘And that was your portfolio.’

‘From ’80 till ’84. Then Harker dumped me for Lucky Lance over the Hoagland sale. Just before the voters dumped the bloody lot of us. I never took a quid, not a bottle of Scotch, in the job. And it was lying around. Made some fucking horrible decisions, mind you. Some places in the city I can’t hardly bear to go. Still. Bloody honest cockups. Pure ignorance and led by the nose by certain people in the department. Some of them pals of Lance Pitman. The bastard came to see me in ’80. I’ll find it here.’

He picked up the diary with 1980 in gold on its cover and riffled through the gilt-edged pages. ‘Got it. Listen:

‘“Pitman came to see me this morning. Slimy as ever. Said he understands that I’m much more suited to the job than he could ever be. Knows all about Ellen. Said it’s a tragedy the way women don’t understand the demands of high office, etc etc. Beat around the bush till I asked him what he wanted. Nothing, he says. Just wanted to say he’s there if I need anything. Then he asked would I like some company. He’s got a young woman friend, lost her husband, understands grief and so on. Told him no thanks. He hung around a bit more, then asked me how I was going on the Baygate project. I said it was going through due process. He said he thought it would be bad for the party’s image with business if it got knocked back. Also, the developers were likely to be generous donors at election time. I didn’t show any interest. Then he asked me if I’d heard there was a chance ColdRoads could put their new packing plant in my electorate. I said I thought it was going to Orbison. That wasn’t settled yet, he said. Raelene came in and said my appointment had arrived. At the door, Pitman turned around and said, as if he’d just remembered it, that, by the way, did I know that the major shareholders in Baygate were also on the board of ColdRoads. I don’t have any doubt about his meaning, but I don’t want to go to Harker with something the bastard will say was just an innocent remark.”’

He looked up at me. ‘You know what happened?’

I shook my head.

‘Baygate got built. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out just because Pitman wanted it built. I should have. That was a good enough reason. But I wanted it to be a fair planning decision. And the department was divided about it. So I ended up going along with the senior man, a bloke called Malcolm Bleek, who reckoned it was a good thing. And come the election, some of the directors of the company, in their individual capacities mark you, came over with big contributions to the party.’

‘Could be just sound business practice,’ I said.

‘Bullshit. But listen to this. Peterslee was always a marginal seat. Held it because people trusted me, bugger my party. But it only took about three hundred pricks to cross over and I’m gone. And in this business you don’t come back. Ten days before the election, ColdRoads Australia announces it’s putting its new plant in my electorate. Jobs in construction, a whole lot of new permanent jobs. Like a marginal MP’s wet dream, eh?’

I said, ‘You’re saying Pitman believed you’d delivered the goods.’

‘I don’t think he was sure. But he came in to see me again after the election. Before he could open his mouth, I said to him, “You slimy little shit, if you ever mention the name of a project to me again, that project is dead in the water. I don’t care what it is, can be the landing strip for the second coming, it is fucking stone dead.” He never said a word, just turned and walked.’

Pixley stared into his glass. ‘Like I said, Jack, your timing’s good. Three months ago, I’d have told you to fuck off. I took the view that I couldn’t get Pitman without hurting the party. And I couldn’t do that. Party’s been my whole life. Been everything to me. Cost me two marriages, kids who don’t want to know me, but that was my choice.’

He finished his drink. ‘One for the road,’ he said and set to work again.

I drained my beer and waited for him in silence. When he’d put the glass in front of me, he said, ‘Mortality, that’s what changed my mind. I was lying in the Epworth waiting for the knife and I thought about dying and fucking Lance Pitman coming to my funeral. I thought, fuck me, if I come out of this and a chance comes up, I’ll shaft the fucker. It’ll hurt the party, but in the long run not shafting him will hurt it more.’

‘Is there likely to be any kind of evidence against him?’

‘You and Ms Hillier are going to have to find that out. Let me tell you the rest of the story.’