Peter Temple: Bad Debts

I said, ‘They got all of you on armed robbery now?’

Barry finished the chips, drained the Coke, put everything away neatly in the recyclable brown paper bag, opened his window and threw the bag out into the carpark. ‘The ones they’re hoping will take a bullet,’ he said. ‘We’re out there doing the in-progresses. When I done this line of work years ago, only the mad dogs fired on you. Now it’s all fucken mad dogs. They all fire on you. Chemical war’s going on inside their heads. The stuff come in the nose is fighting with the stuff come up the arm. Cause for concern, I can tell you.’

He looked at his watch. ‘Shit. I’ve gotta get moving. What’s your interest in this McKillop?’

‘Ex-client of mine. Wife reckons he thought someone wanted to kill him.’

Barry sighed. It triggered off a burp. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I’m all wind. Listen, short story is this Quinn, drug squad, he got a call just before seven Saturday night, there’s a handover set for the yard of the Trafalgar, 7 p.m. There was a bit of stuffing around, they didn’t get there till quarter past.’

He burped again and patted his pockets. ‘Never got a bloody Quikeze when you need one. Anyway, they hang around for a bit, no-one in sight, reckon they’ve missed the boat. Then they take a stroll through the cars, one from each end, and this cunt pops up with a.38 pointing at Martin, Quinn’s offsider. So Quinn, who’s behind this guy, puts four in him. Dead on arrival. There’s about five hundred bucks’ worth of smack in his car. End of story.’

‘And McKillop?’

‘Form.’

‘Not since.’

‘Well shit’s shit.’

‘Wife can’t believe it. Kid, job. Says he’s been absolutely straight.’

Barry gave a snort. ‘That’s what Mrs Eichmann said.’ He rubbed his stomach.

‘What if Quinn went out, knocked him and planted the gun and the shit?’ I said.

Barry gave me a long look, shaking his head. His eyes were light green, with little dark flecks. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Jack, he’s an officer with sixteen years’ service. You take my meaning?’

‘No.’

He got out of the car and leaned in. ‘He’d have knocked him somewhere less public. Mate, I got to go. I’m further up shit creek if I don’t get to town in about five minutes.’

‘I’ll be in touch. Buy you a drink,’ I said.

Barry put his head back in the window. ‘Drinks, mate, drinks. You’re dealing with the old culture here.’

‘Danny’s dead,’ the old woman said through the small opening. ‘Who’re you?’

I was standing on the leaking porch of a weatherboard house in Richmond. I’d got the address from a prison officer I knew from the days when I visited clients in Pentridge. The prison records had Mrs Mary McKillop, aunt, as Danny McKillop’s next of kin. I looked her up in the phone book: it was the number Danny had left on the machine. Sue McKillop hadn’t known the aunt was alive and had no idea how to find the cousin she’d mentioned.

‘Mrs Mary McKillop?’ I said.

‘He’s dead,’ she repeated. ‘Whad’ya want?’

‘I’m a lawyer. I’d like to talk about Danny.’

‘Danny’s dead. Bugger off.’

The two-inch opening closed with a crack. I stared at the door’s peeling green paint for a while, thinking about trying again. I could still smell the ancient fumes of boiled cabbage and cat piss and decaying ceilings that had leaked out when the door opened. That decided the issue. But as I turned the door opened a sliver.

‘Try next door.’

The door closed again.

I tried the house to the right. A thin woman in her forties with lank, dead hair answered my knock. She blinked at me as if unaccustomed to light.

‘I’m making inquiries about Danny McKillop,’ I said.

She looked at me for a long time, then she put her hands in the pockets of her pink housecoat. ‘He’s dead. Was in the paper.’ Her voice was toneless.

‘It’s his cousin I’d like to talk to.’

She looked at me in silence.

‘It’s about the accident Danny went to jail for. It’s possible he didn’t do it.’

She waited.

‘There might be some compensation.’

She cleared her throat. ‘You’d better talk to Vin. He’s Danny’s cousin. He’s not here.’

‘Is he Vin McKillop?’ I said.

She nodded.

‘Do you know where I could find him?’

She thought for a while, then said, ‘Suppose he’s working. Only time he gets up before twelve. Dennis Shanahan in Edge Street’ll know.’

I found Dennis Shanahan in the phone book. A woman said he was demolishing a building in Abbotsford, Joseph Street.

There were three middle-aged men, a teenage boy and a lean brindle dog with a studded collar on the site. I could see them all from across the road. One man was sitting in the cab of a truck behind the shell of the single-storey building, the second was prising out a window with a crowbar, the third was feeding a fire of old timbers in the back corner. The teenager was cleaning bricks with a hammer and chisel. The dog was watching him. A portable radio somewhere in the ruin was putting out ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ at full volume.

I crossed the road and walked along a plank bridging the exposed floor beams to the first doorway in the passage. A smell of poor lives hung over the place: cooking fat, yellow feet, burnt ironing boards and blocked drains.

‘I’m looking for Vin,’ I shouted to the window remover. He made a gesture with his thumb without looking around.

I guessed the man in the truck would be the boss, so I tried the man at the fire. I couldn’t get close: the heat was intense. It didn’t seem to bother the man feeding it. He was short, heavyset, with dark curly hair and sideburns, probably in place since Elvis. The same could be said for his jeans and the grime on his hands and under his nails. His nose was flattened and slightly askew and a big piece of right eyebrow was gone.

‘Vin McKillop?’ I said.

He had a length of two-by-four hardwood in his right hand, poking the fire. He looked up at me without expression. Boxer’s eyes. ‘Who wants him?’

‘I’m a lawyer,’ I said. ‘It’s about Danny McKillop. I know he’s dead but I need to talk to someone who knew him.’

The man threw his two-by-four into the flames.

‘What about him?’ he said.

‘It’s about the accident. The woman’s death.’

He picked up another splintered piece of wood. ‘He done the time,’ he said flatly.

‘I’m trying to find out if he done the crime.’

The man spat into the flames. ‘What’s it to you if he done it or not done it?’

‘It’s complicated,’ I said. ‘Can you spare me a bit of time? There’s an interview fee.’

‘I’m on the job.’

‘Take half an hour unpaid. I’ll pay you for that too.’

Vin McKillop positioned the wood carefully on the fire and rubbed under his nose with a forefinger. ‘There’s a pub around the corner,’ he said. ‘Cost you twenty bucks.’

The pub was empty except for two old men sitting at a formica table in a corner looking at nothing. The place smelt of stale beer and carbolic. I got two beers and sat at a table near the door. Vin came in and went straight through the door marked GENTS. When he came back, he stood at the bar. He was making some kind of point. I picked up the beers and went over to him.

‘Cheers,’ I said.

Vin didn’t say anything. He just picked up the glass and drank three-quarters of the beer. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s the fee?’

I had a fifty-dollar note ready. I put it on the bar. Then I put a twenty on top of it.

Vin put the money in his top pocket. He took a cigarette out of the same pocket without revealing the pack and lit it with a plastic lighter. He took a deep drag and let the smoke run out his nostrils. I felt like asking him for one. ‘You a Jack?’ he said.