Ecstasy Lake (21 page)

31

I woke at five and called Melody.

‘This is starting to get creepy, Steve. Are you stalking me?' She sounded croaky.

‘I thought you sailor types woke up early.'

‘I thought you mining engineer types would sleep in occasionally and leave us sailor types in peace.'

‘I can't live like this.'

‘Like what?'

‘This. Spending my nights worrying about you. I'm staying on the boat tonight.'

‘Is that what you think?'

‘Yes.'

‘Fine. Can I go back to sleep now?'

‘Really?'

‘Really what?'

‘It's really alright for me to spend tonight on the boat? I thought you'd put up more of a fight than that.'

‘Not at five in the morning. At five in the morning I will do whatever you say.'

‘That's good to know.'

‘Har har. Very funny. Steve?'

‘Yes?'

‘Thanks.'

‘For what?'

‘For spending your nights worrying about me.'

I managed to sleep for a couple more hours and Bert was gone when I woke, no doubt to resume his duties with Tasso. The man was a machine. The bed in the spare bedroom had been made and if he had eaten breakfast he must have washed his dirty dishes and put them away because the kitchen was spotless.

I bought a copy of the
Advertiser
and read it over coffee at a café on my way to work. The front page was all about Harlin, the suspected killer on the loose in little old Adelaide. A photo of Harlin took up a quarter of the front page and I thought it was going to be difficult for him to stay hidden for long with his face on display like that. Inside the paper there was a recycled, two-page spread on ‘Adelaide's bikie war' and who was thought to have done what to whom, and why. Parts of the account corresponded with what I knew, but it was so vague it would have left most readers none the wiser. The police commissioner didn't have any answers, but he praised the officers involved in the bungled arrest, saying they were doing a superb job in difficult circumstances. The Minister for Police deferred all difficult questions to the police commissioner, but he did express outrage at the disrespect the gangsters were showing for the law, and that ‘this is just further evidence that our law on gangs is desperately needed here in South Australia'. The shadow Minister for Police made a statement that was a mirror image of his counterpart's. There was an article on how Harlin had escaped the clutches of police from his fortress at Globe Derby Park, which was pictured from several angles, including overhead. Tasso's friend, the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, had been somewhat inaccurate: Harlin hadn't used an escape tunnel, just a gate in the fence. Two Star Force officers had been injured in the melee with members of Harlin's gang, and there had been four arrests. Harlin had been tracked over the saltpans but the trail had gone cold at the edge of the mangroves. There was an inference that Harlin had been tipped off about his imminent arrest by someone in the South Australia Police.

Over the page was a picture of Melody. It didn't look recent and it might have been taken in a nightclub, but it was unmistakably her, and, in case there was any doubt, the caption carried her name and dubbed her the ‘girlfriend of gang leader and suspected murderer Christopher Harlin'. The photo was next to an article about how Melody had been dragged by the hair from a Mexican restaurant, allegedly by Harlin. The restaurant's manager was quoted as saying that the brutal attack had been unprovoked and that he had been scared for the woman's life. ‘Thang is believed to have been dining at the restaurant with a former Crows footballer when the attack occurred', said the article. It didn't mention my name.

My phone rang. It was Tarrant.

‘Any news on Harlin?' I said.

‘I was going to ask you the same thing. Any idea where he might be?'

‘No.'

‘His deputy, Peter Coy, appears to have gone missing, too.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. You know him?'

‘I've met him a few times.'

‘Any insights?'

I took a moment before answering. ‘I might have one or two.'

Tarrant took his time replying, too. He seemed to take a deep breath. ‘Where are you, West? At this fucken minute?' I told him. ‘Stay there, don't move. I'm coming to get you. If you're not there when I get there, I will shoot you the next time I see you and mutilate your body.'

He was there in fifteen minutes, with McGarry, and I hadn't even shifted in my chair.

‘What the fuck, West,' he said.

‘Have a seat,' I said. The café was not crowded but a few heads had turned at Tarrant's words. When they saw McGarry's uniform they stayed turned. Tarrant stared at me for a moment, chomping on his gum.

‘No. You're coming for a ride.'

We drove to the city station and I was led into an interview room, a different one than before and not as nicely decorated.

‘I could have just told you to come here on your own accord, but I didn't want to waste half a day waiting while you toured the Barossa or something,' said Tarrant. ‘Now let's make this quick, so you don't waste any more of our time and we can focus on catching a killer instead of being dicked around.'

‘I heard Hiskey was involved in drug-smuggling,' I said. Tarrant didn't react. ‘I heard that Harlin's gang makes ecstasy, which it sells here and in the eastern states. There's a key ingredient called safrole. I looked it up on Google. It's …'

‘I know what safrole is. It's extracted from a Southeast Asian rainforest tree.'

‘Yes, there's a significant industry to produce it in Cambodia, I believe. The tree is cut down and the oil is distilled in situ and then smuggled to China. From there, Hiskey was importing it with his drilling supplies.'

‘And you know this how?'

‘Someone in the gang told me.'

‘Melody Thang?' said McGarry.

‘No, of course not. She's not part of the gang.'

‘Not even with her Chinese connections?'

‘No, not even with her Chinese connections, if she has any. Anyway, she's Chinese
Malaysian
. Actually, she's Australian. You shouldn't link her to any of this just because she looks Asian.'

‘I'm just asking the question,' said McGarry.

‘Whatever Melody Thang's involvement is, we can leave for another time,' said Tarrant. ‘But you
will
tell us how you know about the safrole.'

‘No. I can't reveal my sources.'

At this point Tarrant decided to get a few things off his chest. He felt he had to yell them off. He yelled at me about obstructing police, complicity in crime(s), failure to report crime(s), and how if anyone got hurt it would be my fault and I might reflect on that during my year(s) at Yatala Prison. Eventually, after he had yelled enough, he leaned in very close and spoke in a low voice. ‘West, you are not a journalist, a lawyer, a doctor or a priest. You do not have the right to protect your so-called sources. I am very sick of you. I have been wrong to tolerate you for so long. I am keeping a list of all the things you are doing that are against the law. It is a list that is getting longer on a daily basis. When we have put Hiskey's killer behind bars I will come back to that list and hold you accountable for each item on it if I have to form another fucken task force to do so. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Crystally.'

He leaned back and looked at McGarry. ‘See, he has to be a smartarse. He can't help it. He's a congenital smartarse.' He sighed and tried again. ‘Help me and help yourself, West. Open up, cooperate and we can stop Harlin before he does any more damage. And maybe the list will find its way into a shredder.'

I was seeing sense in his argument. I wondered why I should bother shielding Coy, a guy who was involved in the manufacture of illicit drugs and who walked around poking his big silver pistol in my face several times a week and presumably in the faces of others.

‘Coy told me,' I said. ‘He said Hiskey was smuggling the safrole for Harlin's operation but got greedy and decided to sell it to the Mad Dogs. Harlin didn't like it and took to Hiskey with a geologist's hammer. Hiskey's own hammer, in fact.'

‘Is Harlin capable of that?' said McGarry.

‘I would think so. I've seen him go berserk over lesser things.' I pointed to my nose. ‘His handiwork.'

‘Did Coy say how he knew this?'

‘He said Harlin had turned up at the fortress with a bloody hammer on the night Hiskey was murdered, and I guess he put two and two together.'

‘And Harlin just gave Coy the hammer?'

‘Yes, according to Coy. He said Harlin gave it to him to get rid of it. Which obviously he didn't. He left it in my car instead.'

‘Why your car?' said Tarrant. ‘And why confide all this in you, of all people?'

‘He told me he didn't like the way Harlin treated Melody. He said he appreciated the way I had got her back from Harlin.'

‘Which you have not told us how.'

‘Which I am not going to tell you how, without a lawyer.'

‘So why would Coy hand over the hammer?'

‘He told me he wanted Harlin put away because the guy was dangerous.'

‘And maybe because Coy wanted the drug business to himself.'

‘Most likely.'

‘Do you know where Coy is now?'

‘No. I guess he's hiding. He thinks Harlin will try to hunt him down, now the hammer has raised its head, so to speak.'

Tarrant and McGarry left the room. I wondered what Melody was doing. The minutes ticked by. After about forty-five of them a uniformed cop stuck his head in the door and looked surprised that I was still there and told me to bugger off or they'd start charging me rent.

32

Outside the police station I stood on the curb with the idea of catching a taxi back to the café where I'd left my car. It was a warm, bright morning and a light north-westerly was blowing. The street had that lazy Adelaide feeling to it. Not many taxis were rushing past. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

‘Steve West? I'm James Barenfanger. We need to talk.'

I looked at the man they called Fang, president of the Mad Dogs. It was the first time I had seen him close. He was a big man, several inches taller than me. His shoulder-length hair was dark brown, and he wore tortoise-shell-framed sunglasses that were narrow enough to show his eyebrows above them. He was a handsome man, and knew it.

‘Do we have something to talk about?' I said.

‘I believe we do.' He held up his hands, palms towards the sky. ‘No harm in talking, is there?'

‘Let's hear it, then.'

‘Not here. I know a place.' I followed him without enthusiasm to a coffee house on Grenfell Street. Fang nodded to the bald man behind the counter and led me to a small room at the back, which the shop staff possibly used in their breaks. There was a small table and a couple of folding chairs, and on the table was a paperback novel, bookmarked about halfway through. There were bags of coffee on shelves.

‘We won't be disturbed here, and no one will hear us,' said Fang. He closed the door. ‘I have an arrangement with the management. Nugget'll bring us coffee in a minute and then he'll leave us alone.'

I sat down. ‘I hope this won't take long, Barenfanger.'

‘Call me Fang, it's easier. No, it won't take long.' He had removed his sunglasses, exposing clear, cold, deadly blue eyes. Nugget knocked on the door and brought in a couple of cappuccinos. He gave me a disinterested look as if to say he definitely wouldn't remember that I'd been there, and left without a word.

‘Some people say cappuccinos are for girls,' said Barenfanger. ‘I don't care. I like cappuccinos.' He took a sip.

‘I don't mind them.'

‘The world is changing, West. It's okay to like cappuccinos.'

‘It's okay to be gay, too,' I said. He didn't like that. His deadly eyes lined me up. ‘Don't take that the wrong way, by the way,' I said.

He kept his killer look for a moment and then suddenly grinned. ‘I've been told you're a smartarse, West. I can see it's true. Yes, it's okay to be gay these days, if that's your thing. It's okay to watch porn movies. It's okay to do drugs. And I guess it's okay to be a smartarse.' He put his cup on the table and leaned towards me. ‘But if you believe the papers, the world's going to hell and this city's in the middle of a gang war over control of the drug trade.'

‘And you're telling me it's not?'

He smiled. It was a small smile, and it didn't make me feel warm. ‘The papers get it right sometimes. I
do
want control of the city's drug trade. And I'll get it.'

‘You know, I had a similar conversation with Peter Coy.'

He sipped his coffee. There was something wrong with his mouth. It was too small for his face and the lips were too thin, even for his small mouth. It detracted from his handsomeness and emphasised his conceitedness. ‘Yes, I heard you'd had a few run-ins lately with Harlin and Coy.'

‘Where did you hear that?'

‘Doesn't matter where I heard it. The point is, I want their business. This is a small town. You and I have a mutual interest. You've got a good reason to want Harlin and Coy
removed
, shall we say, and so have I. All I want from you is information, and I'll do the rest.'

‘What sort of information?'

‘I want to know where their new lab is.'

‘I don't know where it is.'

‘Maybe you'll find out. If you do, you should let me know.'

‘What would you do?'

‘Don't worry about that.' He gave another mealy smile. ‘My ultimate goal, of course, is to smash Harlin's business.'

‘And what's in it for me?'

‘Money.'

‘Don't need it.'

‘Influence, then. You operate on the edge of the law, West, I can see that. Sometimes you need favours. Let me assure you, you would rather be my friend than my enemy.'

‘I would rather I didn't know you at all.'

He laughed. With his small mouth, it wasn't an attractive laugh, but his amusement seemed genuine. He wrote on a piece of paper and gave it to me.

‘This is my number. I have a small army at my disposal. We can help each other.'