Cross Off (2 page)

'I'm a man's woman,' she had told him on their first meeting a fortnight before.

'Is that right?' Dunlop had said.

'Right. And I don't mean what you think I mean. I can't stand women—sitting about talking and moaning. I like men who're up and doing.'

With Ava, conversation naturally fell into double entendre. Dunlop had laughed at this one. They got along fine except that he was no fun. Ava tried non-stop to seduce him on their first few meetings but, after his disastrous affair with Cassie May Loew, Dunlop had kept business and pleasure strictly separate. As a sacked cop with no other skills, he needed the WPU job. Besides which, he enjoyed it—some of the time.

Ava sat with her legs crossed and smoked while
Dunlop waited for the luggage. Being a man's woman, he noted, didn't mean sharing the work. The terminal was very basic, just a big shed with the essential amenities. At three p.m. on a Friday it was busy with flights landing and taking off for parts north and south regularly. Schoolkids, businessmen, surfies, Asian tourists, Aborigines and Islanders, nuns. Dunlop automatically surveyed the crowd, looking for the person-out-of-place, listening for the discordant note. Not that he expected trouble at the airport—a bad place to kill anyone unless you were a terrorist and didn't mind killing a dozen or so and probably dying yourself.

They had travelled business class so their luggage came off early—Ava's matched set and his large overnight bag and golf clubs. Ava mocked when she saw the clubs.

'I figured you for tennis. What's your handicap?'

'Don't ask, Ava. Just don't ask.'

'They'll have clubs up there. No need for you to haul all that around.'

'I've got an M1 carbine in here. You want protection, don't you?'

'Bullshit. You've got a gun in your armpit. How'd you get it onto the plane?'

'Trade secret.'

He loaded the trolley and trundled it across to where Ava was engaged in conversation with a fat man in a Hawaiian shirt.

'Darling, this is Chuck,' Ava said. 'He's from Indiana.'

'Omaha,' Chuck said.

Dunlop adjusted the cover on one of his woods. 'Gidday, Chuck. The flight for Omaha's just boarding.'

'Say, buddy. No need to . . .'

Ava patted his plump cheek as she stood. 'He's a brute.'

Ava stood only a few centimetres shorter than Dunlop's 180 and had a long stride, even in heels. She caught up with Dunlop as he pushed the trolley towards the exit and tucked her arm through his.

'You'll chat up the wrong guy one day,' Dunlop said.

Ava laughed. 'Whaddya mean, one day? I've done it a hundred times. But I feel safe with you, darling.'

They stood under cover outside the terminal. The hills were misty and the drifting drizzle had become a steady, light rain. The light was bad and they were facing a car park. Dunlop was edgy and freed his arm from Ava's hold.

'Bad day for golf,' Ava said.

Dunlop grunted. 'Why don't we just stay in Cairns? Plenty of pubs they tell me. Your kind of town.'

'No way. I want to go to the resort. I want to see what two hectares of swimming pools and a million bucks' worth of palm trees looks like.'

Car doors and boots were opened and closed quickly. Tyres hummed on the wet cement. Parking lights were turned on against the gloom. Everything normal.

'We'll get the resort bus,' Dunlop said. 'I draw the line at a stretch limo.'

3

N
ervously, Vance Belfante watched the approach of George Frost across the exercise yard in the remand section of Long Bay prison. A big man, at 185 centimetres and eighty-five kilos, he never felt that his several centimetres and kilos advantage over Frost would do him much good if it came to a fight. There was something about George that told you to keep your hands to yourself. Belfante had seen Jeff Fenech in the street in Marrickville once and had the same feeling. If Fenech had told him to step off the pavement into the gutter to let him pass, Vance would have given serious thought to doing it. Not that he'd admit it to anyone.

Frost had his hands in his jeans pockets and his leather jacket zippered against the cold morning. As remand prisoners, they were entitled to wear their own clothes. Belfante wore a tracksuit and rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. Frost had asked to see him and had kept him waiting. It wasn't the right way for an employee to behave, although George wasn't exactly an employee now. Hard to say what the fuck he was. They'd kept their distance from each other since they went inside. Belfante had
his reasons for this. Among them was the suspicion that George had set him up somehow and that it had gone wrong, leaving George in the same frame. Vance was bright enough to guess that Frost had thoughts along the same lines.

'What's on your mind, George?'

'I've been thinking about Ava.'

'That makes two of us. That bitch! I wish I'd never laid eyes on her. I wish . . .'

'I fucked her.'

'You what?'

'I fucked her, Vance. Just a couple of times. Then she . . .'

Belfante's roar made Frost step back and took the force out of the roundhouse swing that would have flattened his nose. The punch took him on the left cheekbone, rocked him and he covered up. Belfante bullocked forward, throwing punches and yelling, wasting energy. Frost, the street fighter, took most of the blows on his forearms. A kick, aimed at his knee but landing lower, stung him into action. He backed away, then let Belfante come at him. The bigger man was poorly balanced and undecided whether to kick or punch. Frost drove his knee into Belfante's crotch and brought his doubled fists down on the back of his neck when Belfante sagged forward.

It was all over inside a minute, too quick for an appreciative crowd to gather or for the guards to take action. The few prisoners who had heard Belfante's shouts and seen the action kept their distance. No business of theirs. Frost propped Belfante against the wall and squatted down beside him. 'You want a smoke, Vance?'

'Fuck you.'

'Get real, mate. I'm trying to help.'

'I didn't need any help with fucking my wife.'

Privately, George Frost had his doubts on that score. He didn't flatter himself that he was the only player on Ava's team, but she had seemed upset when he broke off with her. But was that enough to make her frame him for murder? He needed to talk to Vance about it and had only held back until now because of what Vance might do. He could be a nutter at times. Well, they should be past that now. They
needed
to talk.

'Look, Vance, I gave Ava the flick. I didn't want to go on . . . you know, putting it over on you, and I was finding her a bit of a handful. Look, I'm sorry. But we've got to work out why she's screwing us like this. We can't stay in this fuckin' hole doing nothing. It's a heavy number.'

Belfante felt gas rise in his stomach and sear his throat. He fought the urge to throw up and tried to draw some satisfaction from the red swelling that was growing on Frost's face. And he'd admitted he couldn't handle Ava. That was no surprise. Anyhow, he'd suspected it all along. Ava and George—why not? And the prick was talking sense now. If Ava had found out that the kid Shelley was having was his—
that'd
stir her up. But there was no way for Ava to know about that. No way at all. Still, George was right. They had to do something.

'Do you know who knocked Rankin, George?'

'I don't have a fuckin' clue. All I know is it wasn't me. I might have done it if you'd propositioned me. I don't know. I'll tell you this much. They wouldn't have found the fuckin' body.'

'I don't know what she's playing at,' Belfante said. 'Ava turning dog. I still can't believe it.'

'Was everything . . . all right between you and her?'

Belfante nodded and accepted a cigarette. Both men lit up. 'Same as ever. Both going our own ways. No problems.'

'There
has
to be something behind it. I thought it'd just blow over, you know. Like she was getting at you for something. Or the jacks had her tits in a wringer. It couldn't be that, could it?'

Belfante shrugged. 'I don't know. I thought it'd go away, too. I didn't believe it at first. I was like in shock. I thought maybe the jacks had fitted us up and we'd have to roll over on something else. Some fucking thing. But nothing like that's happened. And no bloody bail! Reuben says it's all going ahead. Real tight.'

'Is he all right, Reuben?'

'Yeah. He's good. Plus, I've got him by the balls.'

'Someone's got to have a word with Ava.'

'They've put her in the witness protection program. Federal.'

'I thought you said this Reuben was good.'

'He is, but I might have to give his nuts a tug.'

Dennis Tate was very puzzled. He had done the hit on Rankin. Nice clean job. A skinny bloke. His neck had snapped like a carrot. Disposal had been messy. Something to be ashamed of. But it was bad luck, that ranger coming along just then. What was he supposed to do—whack out the ranger as well? He knew what he
should
have done—checked carefully to make sure the road wasn't patrolled at that
hour of the morning. But who had the time to follow park rangers all over the place? They probably didn't even have regular patrol runs.

Still, Tate felt bad about the body being discovered so soon. But this business of Belfante and Frost being charged was a real worry. Especially Frost. A hard man with hard friends. And Belfante wasn't exactly friendless either, or short of money. It all added up to trouble. It had seemed like such an easy one—wait for the guy in his car, knock him off, put him in the ground and get rid of the car. Easy. But now the second payment was slow in coming through and Tate was beginning to wonder if he'd get it at all. He could understand the client's unhappiness, but he needed the money.

Dennis Tate was forty-two years of age. A Tasmanian farmboy, he had been taught to kill in Vietnam and had gone on killing after the war was over—mostly in Africa, briefly in South America. He had joined, and deserted, the French Foreign Legion and spent three years—under an assumed name—in a British prison having been convicted of training IRA saboteurs. If his trainees had ever managed to actually sabotage anything he would have got thirty years. Tate considered he'd overdrawn on his luck in other parts of the world and returned to Australia.

David Rankin was his eleventh hit in seven years. His price had risen from twenty to thirty thousand dollars over that time. He had an escalating scale of charges for other services which included non-fatal wounding, limb-breaking, damage to property and arson. Commissions came to him in a variety of highly secure ways—through coded classified advertisements, frequently changed post office
boxes and dead letter drops and calls from public telephones. Tate never met his clients personally, but dealt through intermediaries he trusted or had a hold over.

He regarded himself as a skilled professional, methodical and uninvolved. He had only one scruple—he would not kill children. Tate was the eldest in a large family and he had been fond of his younger brothers and sisters. Overheads were high for some jobs which might involve travel and the purchase of vehicles and other equipment, but payment was in cash and tax-free. Tate lived modestly, with hunting and fishing as his only nonprofessional activities and fast vehicles his only hobby. For sex, he used prostitutes; he changed flats, cars, hair and clothing styles regularly.

Six months before the Rankin assignment he had begun to lose weight, feel unwell and urinate excessively. Diabetes was diagnosed and he was hospitalised, put on a diet and introduced to the procedures he would have to follow for the rest of his life: insulin injections before each meal and daily testing of his blood sugar.

'You will experience changes in your eyesight and you will have to live a disciplined, regular life,' the doctor had told him. 'It's greatly to your advantage that you're in good physical condition. Your height and weight are
. . .?
'

Tate was of the old school. 'Six foot. Twelve stone.'

'Excellent. Maintain that weight. What is your line of work, Mr Tate?'

'I'm in the pest control business.'

'That sounds all right. Nice and quiet.'

'Yeah.'

'Cheer up. There are many worse things than diabetes, and don't believe what you might hear about impotence. No reason for a problem if you stick to the rules.'

Tate had experienced almost no illness in his life and the only medical attention he had ever had was for battle wounds. He took the news hard. Whoever heard of a hit man with dodgy eyesight eating three healthy meals a day? It was all over. After a month of depression and ignoring the medical advice, during which he experienced his first serious low blood sugar episode, termed a 'hypo' by diabetics, he convinced himself that his body had given him an important signal. Tate trusted his body. He began to follow the diabetic regime scrupulously and he formed a plan—do two more jobs and buy a house and some land in Tasmania. Retirement.

The mess he'd made of the Rankin job represented a serious setback to his scheme. He needed the rest of the money and another assignment. For that he needed a sound reputation, not flaky stories circulating about botched burials and fancy frame-ups. He
had
to find out what was behind the Belfante-Frost business. Or who.

4

T
he Oasis Resort at Port Douglas occupied 300 acres. The brochures kept to the old measurement scale because it sounded bigger than the equivalent in hectares. The gently undulating land with its half kilometre of beach had been a dairy farm and the original cottage was preserved as a quaint feature in the middle of a great deal of aggressive modernity. The hotel was a series of three-storey buildings linked by pathways and boardwalks, set amid huge chlorinated swimming pools, some of which had white sand beaches. Most of the rooms had balconies over their own private 'lagoons'. The building style, Dunlop was surprised to find, was harmonious—a sort of North Queensland local with plenty of timber and woven cane and shutters.

'Jee-zus,' Ava said as the bus drove up the avenue of palms, 'this is really something.'