Dead Point

29

Up early stumbling around the streets, back to Richmond in peak-hour morning traffic, thinking about Colin Loder and his dad. That was what worried him most: his dad finding out that he had it off with non-women.

Not his brilliant legal career crashing. Not his wife and children finding out. Just his expectation of his dad’s horrified reaction. His dad probably had his suspicions anyway.

Mr Justice Loder should announce that he was being blackmailed because he was gay or bi, had been silly enough to appear on camera.

Was that all Colin was worried about? Consenting adults? Did his album hold photographs that told a different story?

In Bridge Road, I parked in a loading zone and rang the bell at Vicachin Business Agency.

‘Yes,’ the voice hissed again.

‘Lester rang about me. Yesterday.’

The door bolt unlocked.

The stairway was dark. Upstairs, the offices of Coresecure and Vicachin faced each other across a dim corridor. Vicachin’s door opened and a young woman, unsmiling, beckoned me into an office, walls decorated with travel posters. She opened an inner door and stood back.

A balding middle-aged man in a black suit and striped shirt was behind a desk. He stood up and put out a hand. ‘Call me Tran,’ he said, briskly.

‘Jack Irish.’

‘Sit, Jack.’ He sat down and adjusted his glasses. ‘Your friend tells me you want to know about Alan Bergh. There’s not much I can tell you.’

He had an American accent.

‘He’s gone somewhere?’

‘Well, he hasn’t been in for a couple of weeks.’

‘Have you told anyone?’

‘No.’ He wasn’t looking at me, looking down, fiddling with his glasses.

‘Something may have happened to him.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t like to interfere. Mind my own business.’

‘Do you know much about Coresecure, Tran?’

Tran held up his hands. ‘God knows. Something to do with company security. I think Alan was a soldier once. He speaks some Vietnamese.’

‘Who’s the landlord?’

‘I collect the rent.’

An answer to a question I hadn’t asked. ‘That’s up to date?’

‘Oh yes. Three months in advance.’

‘What did you find when you checked his office?’

‘Nothing.’

As he said it, he knew he’d been taken, tugged at an earlobe, perhaps thinking about the mind-myown-business problem.

‘You worry whether someone’s collapsed, heart attack, you know,’ he said.

‘Of course. Would you mind if I had a look?’

Tran’s eyes said nothing. ‘I don’t understand. Your friend says you’re a lawyer. What is your interest in Alan?’

‘It’s complicated. I think it’s important to find Alan. Very much in his interests. You can trust me not to involve you in any way.’

A long think.

‘I can’t let you into his office.’

‘You don’t have to.’

More thought. Then he opened a drawer at his right and took out two keys on a metal disc, put them on the desk. He stood up, turned his back on me, went to the window. I took the keys.

‘Thank you for talking to me, Tran,’ I said. ‘I imagine a security consultant’s office would be guarded by the latest alarm system.’

He turned. ‘No. Nothing of value, I suppose. Sorry I couldn’t be more help.’

We shook hands and I left. The outer office was empty. I crossed the corridor and unlocked the Coresecure office. Inside, it was dark and musty.

I felt like a burglar.

In many ways, I was a burglar, always intruding, taking things I had no right to.

There was little to take in the Coresecure office. It consisted of two rooms, the front one not used, the back one minimally furnished. There was a desk, nothing on it except a telephone and a box of tissues. The drawers contained printer paper, an ink cartridge and a box of ballpoints. A printer was on a stand next to a filing cabinet, empty. To the right of the desk, a bookshelf held capital city telephone books, copies of an American magazine called CORPORATE SECURITY, and a dozen or so books, company histories and books about business failures and corporate crime.

The wastepaper basket was empty.

I went behind the desk, picked up the telephone and pressed the redial button.

Nothing. Last call cleared.

Standing behind Alan Bergh’s desk, in his boring office, his telephone in my hand, a feeling of disgust, of failure and futility, settled on me. This was not the way an adult should spend time.

I pulled a tissue out of the box, wiped the instrument, replaced it, realised how silly this was for a member of the legal profession, gave the phone an extra rub anyway and went around looking for other things I’d touched. Paranoia satisfied, I clicked off the light.

In the near-dark of the outer room, reaching for the doorknob, I saw the mail basket. The mail was collected downstairs and someone, Tran’s assistant no doubt, posted it through Coresecure’s slot. It fell into a basket attached to the door.

A burglar. A thief.

I did a quick sort of Coresecure’s mail and left, posting the firm’s keys through the mail slot after closing the street door.

Back to Fitzroy, to the office. I’d never spent so much time there. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be at Taub’s, making things. Any things.

At my table, I opened the purloined mail. I’d stolen two bank statements, a credit card statement, and a mobile-phone bill.

I read the bank statements. One was for a cash management account holding $66,354. No transactions in the statement period, an interest credit. A cheque account statement showed three deposits adding up to $28,730 and cash withdrawals, two a week, four or five hundred dollars each time. Six cheques had been drawn against the account, the biggest for $3024. The most recent transaction was a cash withdrawal of $500 two weeks earlier and the account was $12,340.80 in credit.

On to the credit card statement.

Alan Bergh spent money on restaurants, hotels, plane tickets and hire cars, bought clothes at expensive shops, and paid the account balance inside the interest-free period. Rich and prudent.

The last account was the mobile-phone bill: four pages detailing how Alan had incurred a debt of $2548.20. The man gave good phone. I got a pen and asterisked the frequently called numbers and the long calls. Then I rang for Mr Cripps. He was at the door inside fifteen minutes.

Coffee.

Urgent, compelling was the need. I walked swiftly, bought the Age on the way, found Meaker’s near-empty. A new waiter, a thin young man, took my order.

Waiting for my long black, I postponed reading the paper, watched a man taking things out of the back of a van in the loading zone. A sign-writer: Beems Brothers, Sign-writers.

My coffee came. I sipped.

Foul taste of uncleaned machine, reused grind.

Poised to complain, I realised that I didn’t recognise the large person lolling against the counter in front of the machine. Fat, in fact.

I raised a hand. There was anxiety in me.

The new waiter came over. ‘Something else?’

He had big teeth.

‘What’s happened to the usual mob?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The people who usually work here?’

‘New management,’ he said. ‘New staff.’

‘What?’

‘Sold.’

‘As of when?’

‘Pardon?’

‘When did this happen?’

He held up his hands. ‘Temp, mate, can’t help you there.’

I got up and went to the kitchen door.

‘Hey,’ said the man at the coffee machine.

I ignored him, looked in. No Enzio. A small fat man was at the stove. He sensed me, turned his head.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Enzio?’

‘Who?’

‘The cook.’

‘Dunno.’ He looked away. ‘Ask the manager.’

Behind me, the big man said, ‘Staff only, mate.’

I didn’t look at him, went back to my table, picked up my paper, made for the door. The waiter said loudly, ‘Hang on, coffee’s not free.’

I turned, he was close. ‘That isn’t coffee,’ I said with venom.

‘Lettim go,’ said the big man, back behind the counter.

I looked at him.

‘Piss off. See ya, buddy. Go somewhere else.’

Walking away, holding a course, the flow of the aimed and the aimless breaking around me, I was compelled to look back. The sign-writer was scraping at the name Meaker’s on the window.

A chilling sense of fate’s impudence came over me. How could there be no Meaker’s in Brunswick Street? How could it simply be taken away?

Hooted at, I crossed the street and went into a place I didn’t know, barn-like, atmosphere of a school staffroom. It had once been a social club. Macedonian? Portuguese? I couldn’t remember. The coffee was awful, I was too bemused to care, left most of it, wandered back to the office.

I saw him from a long way off, leaning against the wall next to my door. He saw me too but he looked away, smoked his cigarette, studied the sky, clear today, some high cloud. I was metres away before he turned his head to me.

Enzio, clean-shaven, in a black suit, white shirt, dark-blue tie.

‘Jack,’ he said.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

He took a last drag on his cigarette, ground it savagely underfoot. ‘The bastard Willis sold.’

Neil Willis had owned Meaker’s for about fifteen years. He also owned two wedding reception caverns out in the suburbs and his stewardship of Meaker’s consisted of hiring a succession of untrained managers and scrutinising the takings at night. Enzio was the only constant, and so the cook had always ended up grumpily showing the managers how to run the place.

I unlocked the door and we went in. I took my seat. Enzio stood.

‘Sit down,’ I said.

He sat, shifted around in the chair, crossed legs, uncrossed.

‘What’s this suit business?’ I’d never seen him in a suit.

He frowned. ‘I’m comin to see a lawyer. You dress proper.’

I understood.

‘Smoke?’

‘Smoke.’

I fetched the ashtray from the sink in the back room. He lit up, exploded smoke.

‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’ I closed my eyes.

‘Tuesday, Willis come in, business sold, new boss come in tomorrow. No worries about jobs, he says. Bloke wants all staff to stay.’

He took a deep drag, spoke through smoke. ‘Yesterday, the cunt come in. I know straight away, I look at the cunt and I know. Before lunch, sacks Helen. Carmel he sack at the door, says she’s late. Martina, she’s going off, he tells her, customers complain, pick up your pay tomorrow. Closing time, he come in the kitchen, it’s me and the boy cleaning up, he says he’s looked at the books, there’s stealing going on in the kitchen.’

Enzio looked away, looked at my degree certificate on the wall, took a moment to compose himself.

‘Fourteen years, Jack,’ he said, still studying the wall. ‘Steal?’ A catch in the voice. ‘Like I steal from my mother?’

‘I know.’ I wanted to give him a pat.

We sat in silence, contemplating ourselves, our histories at Meaker’s, perfidy, the callousness of people. But I was coming out of shock, cruising past resentment. Revenge and compensation were now in mind. This was a natural progression and I had some training in it.

‘What’s the offer?’ I said.

‘He says, the prick, he’s got the money in his hand, he says four weeks’ pay I give you, lucky you get anything. Don’t like it, I get the cops, you can tell them who you sold all the stuff to.’

‘Take it?’

Enzio put his head back, looked at me over his cheekbones, over lines of spiky hairs that survived his shave, a prickly frontier.

‘I spit on him,’ he said.

Our eyes held for a moment.

‘Right. You in the union?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Willis wouldn’t have the union.’

This wasn’t going to be effortless for someone who’d spent most of his legal career in the criminal courts. I might actually have to find out something about employment law. Either that or I farmed this out. Tempting.

But how could I farm out Enzio?

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We’ve got no choice but to nail the poor bastard.’

I got out a yellow pad. I’d bought four dozen yellow pads when the stationer in Smith Street went under. ‘Now tell me again what happened. Slowly.’

When we’d finished, I went out with him. The day was turning foul, the wind was sharp against the cheek, coming down the street, chasing bits of litter, harrying them like a bully.

‘So,’ said Enzio. ‘You fix it?’

‘I’ll fix it.’

We shook hands. I watched him go. At the corner, he felt my eyes, turned his head, smiled, raised a hand. I did the same.

Oh, Lord, why hast thou anointed me the fixer of all things? And why hast thou ordained this in a cold season in which too many things need fixing?

There were moments when I wished I could go somewhere quiet and ask sensible questions like these. My office wasn’t the place because the phone was ringing. It was Drew.

‘What is it with you?’ he said. ‘You no sooner take an interest in someone and bad things happen to them.’ He didn’t have to say the name. I knew.

‘Who?’

‘Alan Bergh. Found dead in his car at the airport. Execution-style killing, says the paper. Three shots in the head from a. 22.’ Someone was knocking at the door. I knew who it was. My day for being knowing.