Dead Point

25

‘Any luck on short Artie with a Saint tatt?’ I said.

Cam shook his head. ‘That Braybrook address, he was there for three months in ’98 after he came out. Three years for serious assault.’

Artie’s name was Arthur Gary McGowan, he had form going back sixteen years, and he lived outside the world of telephone books, credit cards, Medicare, voters’ rolls, and phone, power, gas and rates bills. He was out there in the cash economy and all we had was an old driver’s licence address.

Today, we were in a non-threatening vehicle, a new Subaru Forester, dark-green, parked outside the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology on Swanston Street, just up from the ugliest new facade in the city. The architects had played an end-of-century joke on the university. Needless to say, the university hadn’t caught it yet. Universities never do catch the joke until it’s too late. Many a French fraud had died laughing while earnest Australian academics were still doing PhDs on his theoretical jokes.

‘She finishes at twelve today,’ said Cam, eyes on the passers-by. ‘Fashion, that’s what she does. Whatever that is.’

He was talking about Marie, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Cynthia the commission agent.

I watched the throng of students, many of them the sons and daughters of the old colonial world, the Asian part. We’d closed our factories so that we could exploit the cheap labour their parents provided. Then we had a second cunning and rapacious thought: we could convince them that our universities were intellectual powerhouses and charge huge fees for admitting their children.

It worked.

‘What’d Cynthia say?’ I said.

‘The boy told her Marie’s got a habit. Coupla days ago. She says she went wild, grabbed Marie when she came in the house. Marie says it’s over, she’s clean, clean since Cyn got bashed.’

‘That’s all?’

He nodded.

‘This Cynthia’s idea?’

‘No. She doesn’t make any connection. I never said anythin. There she goes. You start.’

Cam was out of the car, walking round the front, long strides in his moleskins. He caught up with a slim young woman in black jeans and a purple top, said something. She turned her head, smiled, stopped, obviously knew him. He gestured at the car. She nodded, came back with him.

Cam opened the back door for her.

‘Hi,’ she said.

I turned and said hello. Her spiky hair was the same colour as her top, her lipstick was green, and she had ear and nose rings. The overall effect was innocent, something a five-year-old let loose on her mother’s things might achieve.

Cam got in. ‘Marie, Jack Irish. Your mum knows him. He’s a lawyer.’

‘Hi,’ she said again. ‘I’ve only got a minute. What’s it about?’ Her speech was rushed, nervous.

Cam took out his Gitanes, offered her one. She took it, leaned across for a light, had a coughing fit.

‘Jeez,’ she said, ‘what is it?’

‘There’s somethin milder here somewhere,’ said Cam.

‘No, it’s cool.’ She coughed again. ‘Just a shock.’

Not turning, I said, ‘Marie, we’re trying to find out who bashed your mother.’

I could hear her exhale smoke. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’s good. It’s like a nightmare. Weird.’

I waited a few seconds. ‘How long have you had a habit?’

Silence. ‘Christ, what’s this shit? I’m out of…’

Cam leaned over the seat, draped his arm. ‘Marie, listen, it’s not about you and drugs, right? It’s about who nearly killed your mum. You love your mum, don’t you?’

More quiet. Marie began to cry, a sniffle, throat noises.

‘Don’t you? Love your mum?’

Then she was making crying noises, not loud, and saying, ‘Oh, Jesus, oh Jesus…’

We waited.

After a while, I said, ‘Tell us about it, Marie.’

She did a lot more sniffing, then she said, ‘Mum sent you?’

‘No,’ said Cam. ‘Your mum told me you’d had a problem, but that now you’re clean. She’s proud of you, your mum.’

The sniffing resumed. Then she said, courage plucked, ‘There’s nothing to tell, like. What’s this-’

I said, ‘Last chance, Marie. You could go to jail for this. Conspiracy.’

This time it was a cry from deep down, a wail, then more sobbing. I looked at Cam. He was looking at Marie, flicked his chestnut-brown eyes at me. I thought I detected a hint of compassion. Probably just the light.

We waited.

‘I just told this bloke my mum did big-money bets,’ she said, sad voice. ‘Don’t even know how it works-’

‘Which bloke?’

A long silence.

‘Can’t go back now, Marie,’ said Cam, gently. ‘Which bloke?’

‘Around the bike shop. He deals, everyone knows him, it’s safe.’

‘Why’d you tell him?’ Cam said.

Sigh. ‘I dunno, I just told him one day.’ Sigh. ‘Like I thought it was smart, like my mum didn’t do ordinary kind of… Just stupid. Mum always said… Oh, shit.’

‘You told him that and then what happened?’ I asked.

She became matter-of-fact. ‘He said, give us the word when you’ve got a horse. I didn’t know anything about that, Mum never said a word, all I knew is some days she’s got something on at the races, she’s phoning people, you can’t understand what she’s saying to them.’

‘You told him you never heard the names of horses?’ I said.

‘Yeah. Then one day he says, tell me when your mum’s going to the races and I’ll give you a hit.’

Silence, waiting, Cam leaning over the seat, looking at Marie, tendons like cable in his neck.

‘And?’

‘That day, I was hanging out, didn’t have a cent…’

‘You told him,’ said Cam.

‘Yes.’ Tiny voice. ‘I’d’ve cut my wrists before I told him if I knew what…’

‘Where’s the bike shop?’

‘Elizabeth Street.’

Cam started the vehicle and waited to pull out.

‘My mum,’ said Marie, ‘you’re going to tell Mum?’

‘No,’ said Cam, getting into the traffic, ‘you’ve got your punishment. This bloke always there?’

Marie sniffed. ‘Most of the time. He sees you’re chasin and he meets you at the Vic Market. Keeps the stash there.’

‘We’ll drive by. See if you can point him out.’

We went around the corner into LaTrobe Street, turned right into Elizabeth Street.

Marie saw him almost immediately.

‘Next to that white car, the bloke on the bike.’

‘Sit low,’ said Cam.

He was across the street from the motorcycle dealers, sitting on a black BMW, helmet on his lap, talking to someone in the passenger seat of a car. We got a good look at him — tall, curly red-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, short beard around his mouth.

We took Marie back to Swanston Street. As she was getting out, she said, ‘Cam, I’m so scared my mum’ll find-’

‘Not from us,’ said Cam. ‘Stay clean or you’ll break her heart.’

‘I’m staying clean. That’s over, over.’

We watched her go, long-legged walk, bag swinging.

‘Get that number run?’ said Cam.

‘Five minutes. Find a public phone.’

Cam took out a mobile. ‘Safe phone,’ he said.

I didn’t ask what that meant. I took it and dialled Eric the Geek.