Private Oz (5 page)

Thirty-six Hours Ago.

PAM HEWES’ HUSBAND, Geoff, was in his favorite chair in his favorite pub, The Cloverleaf in Darlinghurst, and he was feeling pleased with himself.

He’d had a good week so far. That afternoon, he’d won a couple of grand at the races, squeezed over ten thousand more from the small businesses he was lending to in the Western Suburbs and heard that the brothels he managed for Al Loretto, the biggest underworld name in Sydney, had increased their profits.

He was about to take a sip of beer when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled round and was startled to see Al Loretto himself standing way too close. Another man Geoff half-recognized was positioned behind him, arms folded.

“Hey, Al,” Geoff said, doing well to disguise his surprise. “How are you?”

Loretto didn’t reply for a moment, just stared down at Geoff surveying him with his hard black eyes. He then pulled up a chair, leaned forward. “Geoffrey,” he said quietly. “Do I or do I not pay you well?”

“What do you mean, Al?”

“Simple question. Do I recompense you adequately for your services?” Al had made an effort with the Oxford English dictionary. Thought it was impressive.

“Yeah, course you …”

He gripped Geoff’s lapel and his companion took a step forward. “Then why are you being so disrespectful, Geoffrey?”

Hewes blanched.

“You want to further capitalize on your employment position? Is that it,
amigo
?”

Geoff went to reply, but stopped as Al Loretto tightened his grip, his breath on his cheek. “How did you come to the conclusion that I would be happy for you to install cameras in my brothels? Hmm?”

Geoff tried again to reply, but was cut short.

“Didn’t you imagine for a second that it was just a tad disrespectful, Geoffrey? Was there not a skerrick of doubt, not a moment when you thought you might
ask me first
?”

“I didn’t think you would have a problem with it,” Hewes managed to say.

Loretto stared at him in silence again.

“I thought …”

“I don’t pay you to think, Geoffrey. Oh no.
I
do the thinking.” The gangster tapped his head.

“So, what do you …?”

“What do I want? I want you to cease and desist. Not hard to understand is it, pal? Take the fucking cameras out this afternoon and do what I pay you to do. Any more questions?”

Geoff looked at him blankly.

“Good,” Loretto answered, stood, picked up the almost full glass of beer and poured it over Geoff Hewes’ head.

I’D JUST WALKED into the lab at Private. Darlene was at a computer, tapping away. The police had sent over everything from the Stacy Friel murder scene for her to study. “Anything?” I asked.

“Not a lot more than the Police Forensics guys have found, I’m afraid. The banknotes are photocopies … high-quality – about the grade of a top-end domestic printer.”

“Fingerprints?”

“I wish! No … Zip. Actually, to be honest, I didn’t expect anything. The killer wore latex gloves. I found traces of the cornstarch powder that coats standard gloves.”

“And nothing special about that?”

“Nope. These gloves could have come from any one of a hundred outlets, a thousand – Coles, Woolworths, any drugstore.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Biological matter from the woman’s vagina. I could tell you where she was in her menstrual cycle and whether or not she’d had sex during the past twenty-four hours. But I can’t give you anything practical about what was put into her.”

“She wasn’t raped?”

“Definitely not.”

I looked round the lab. Benches on each side. On top of these stood impressive-looking machines with elaborate control panels and flashing lights. I recognized a powerful microscope and a centrifuge, but that was about it. The rest might as well have been Venusian technology.

“The cops gave you all the material you need?”

“Yeah, personal effects plus a file containing several hundred photographs of the crime scene. I’ve analyzed Stacy Friel’s jacket. I can confirm the police pathologist’s assessment of the attack – the number of stab wounds, the angle of entry, the type of knife. Although of course, the weapon hasn’t been found. I wish I could have been at the crime scene. It’s hard working second hand like this. I might have caught something the cops missed.”

“I understand,” I replied. “And you found nothing unusual with anything Police Forensics handed over?”

“No, Craig. I’m sorry. Hate to admit it – but right now I’m drawing a complete blank.”

I WAS STARVING – it suddenly hit me as I left Darlene’s lab and strode into reception. Johnny was there talking to our receptionist, Colette. Justine was coming toward us through the main doors a few feet away. She looked hot and flustered.

“I feel like I’m going to get sunstroke every time I step outside,” she declared.

I laughed. “I thought LA was hot.”

“Yeah, but not like this!”

I grinned and glanced at my watch. “I’m going to grab a snack. You hungry?” I asked her. “Or how about a frappaccino?

She looked surprised for a moment. “Great.”

There was a café on the ground floor. We got coffee and muffins and started to head back to the elevator. I checked my watch again, realized I had a spare thirty minutes.

“You got anything to do for half an hour or so, Justine?”

She shook her head as she sipped the frappaccino through a straw.

“Well then, I know just the place for you. I think you’ll appreciate it.”

“Oh!” she said. “A man of mystery …”

WE WALKED DOWN Macquarie Street close to Circular Quay. Straight ahead of us stood the Opera House, the tiers of wide steps leading to its massive windows just a couple of dozen yards away. People were sitting on the steps drinking Slurpees, coffee, Coke. We turned onto the Quay and I pointed out the sights to Justine. She was quiet, taking it all in, but not “oohing” and “ahhing” as some tourists might. I liked that.

We walked in the shade, an arcade of shops to our left. An aboriginal man was playing a didgeridoo over a hip-hop beat spilling from an iPod plugged into a big speaker.

“Very post-modern!” Justine observed. “So where exactly are you taking me?”

“Don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

We came to a bar, tables and umbrellas outside, families eating late breakfast. A big flat screen on the wall inside was showing a soccer game from the English Premier League, Chelsea vs. Tottenham. I led the way through the bar and up a flight of stairs. On the wall was a small sign. It said: ICE BAR.

“What’s this?” Justine asked and spun round, puzzled.

I stepped up to the counter. A few other customers milled
about. Sixty seconds later, I had two tickets in my hand and guided Justine around a corner. An immaculately tanned blonde was waiting for us by a rack of fur coats.

Justine turned to me again.

“Okay, this is the deal,” I said. “You want to cool down? The Ice Bar is set to minus twenty Fahrenheit. Everything is made from ice including the cocktail glasses. We stay in for a drink – twenty minutes. You’ll feel a lot cooler by the end of it.”

I had to laugh as Justine pulled on a nerdy fur-lined anorak and mittens. It wasn’t really her. But she seemed to be loving it all. We went into the antechamber to acclimatize. Here, it was just 18
^o
F. From there we went into the Prep Room, temperature, five degrees. Then the door to the bar swished open and we were inside. The digital thermometer on the wall told us it was minus 20
^o
F … and it felt it, even through the thick socks, the boots, the fur-lined anorak and the mittens.

The floor was covered with ice. The chairs around the walls were made of ice, the bar was ice. Everything backlit electric blue.

“This is fantastic, Craig!” Justine beamed, her breath steamy and fragrant. She sipped at the cocktail and I glimpsed the side of her face as the light from the bar caught it. “I could look at that face and never grow weary of it,” I thought to myself.

THE HO MANSION was in Mosman, a few hundred yards from Taronga Zoo. It was new and vulgar and stuck out like a sore thumb among the genteel old-money houses built at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Buzzed in through an electrically operated gate, Mary and I strode up a gravel path that passed over a pond filled with koi. A Malaysian maid met us at the front door and showed us into a grandiose circular hall. A young Chinese guy in a blue tailored suit appeared in an archway to the right of the hall. He had an earpiece in place, a wire disappearing into his shirt collar. I noticed the bulge of a firearm under his jacket.

I showed him my ID.

“You’re early,” he said and indicated we should follow him along a corridor leading away under the arch. We hung a right, then a left. I glimpsed huge rooms – a gym, a home theater, a couple of living areas, each with the floor space of an average apartment.

We reached a door on the right. Another guard, identical uniform, identical earpiece and jacket bulge, was standing on the nearside of the door. He stiffened as we came round the corner.

The first guy walked off without a word. I flashed my ID again. The second guard opened the door and nodded us in.

It was another impressively proportioned room, high ceiling, sumptuous sofas, a desk, ancient-looking framed Chinese silk prints on dark walls. No sign of Ho.

Halfway into the room, I heard a faint sound from the far corner. There was a door into another room. I noticed a flickering light coming from beyond the doorway but couldn’t make out the sound.

I turned to Mary and put a finger to my lips. Stopping a yard from the door, I pulled to the wall, peered in, Mary right next to me.

There was a wide flat screen on the far wall. A sofa.

On the screen a small boy played with a toy train. He lifted his head and beamed a beatific smile. Then the scene changed. The boy was a little older, maybe seven, eight. He was flying a kite on the beach. The camera panned back and I saw Bathers’ Pavilion, the landmark café on Balmoral Beach a mile from here.

Ho Meng sat in half-profile staring ahead, transfixed. A line of tears running down his cheek, his body shaking.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to come face-to-face with the dead kid.

THE YOUNG GUY gripped my shoulders and turned me from the sight of the weeping Ho Meng. I realized it must be Dai, Chang’s brother. They were so alike it was spooky. I caught Mary’s eye and we crept away across the office, back out into the corridor. Dai led us into one of the living areas I’d seen earlier. He closed the door and indicated we should sit on a sofa, pulled up a chair and leaned forward.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

I started to reply but he lifted a hand.

“Please. I’m sorry because my father would have been so ashamed if he knew you were there. I’m sorry for him, for me.”

I nodded. It wasn’t the way I would have thought, but I understood what the guy meant – from his cultural perspective.

“We didn’t mean to intrude,” Mary said.

“What is it you want?”

“We hoped to talk to your father about your brother’s murder.”

“He’s told me all about the Triads. I grew up with them as a dark presence in our lives.”

There was a sound from the doorway. Ho Meng was standing with the light from the hall breaking around him. He strode over as Mary and I got up from the sofa. He gripped my hand and then pecked Mary on the cheek. He had transformed from the grief-stricken father in the home theater, and was once again the upright businessman. But he couldn’t completely hide the pain. I saw it in his eyes.

“Please everyone, sit,” he said. “I heard what my son told you, and it is absolutely true. The Triads have hung over our lives like a dark shadow, and they still do. In fact their shadow has grown darker.”

“Meng, this morning I could tell you were holding back. If you want us to work with you in hunting down your son’s killers you have to tell us everything,” Mary said.

He held her gaze unblinking. “You are right. The fact is I am convinced my wife, Jiao, was murdered by the Triads twelve years ago, soon after we came to Australia. She was last seen in Chinatown, in the middle of the day. Next morning her headless body was discovered in Roseville. The police were convinced it was the work of a psycho killer, connected it with two similar unsolved murders from three years before. But they never caught the killer.”

“And that is why you don’t trust the cops,” I said.

Ho merely nodded. “They have consistently let me down. First Jiao, then Chang. I reported him missing. They did nothing. Then he died.”

I felt like saying that the police could not be everywhere all the time, but thought better of it.

Then Mary said, “But Meng, what I don’t understand is this. If you are convinced the Triads killed Jiao, surely when Chang
was kidnapped you knew they would be serious about killing him if you didn’t agree to work with them?”

Dai went to speak, but his father silenced him with a look. “You’re missing the point, Mary. The members of the Triads are not honorable men. They would have killed Chang either way. They would have kept him until I fulfilled my side of the bargain, then they would have slit his throat – he knew too much about them to live. Now, perhaps you begin to understand why I don’t trust the police. It was thanks to them I was put in that terrible position.”

I WAS WITH Johnny again in my office at Private, the door open. We heard voices from reception – Colette talking to a man. Without looking up, I heard Johnny shuffle in his chair, then sensed rather than saw him freeze in surprise.

“What is it?” I glanced up from the papers on my desk and saw a man in the corridor staring at us. “Well, well!” I said.

Micky Stevens was quite a bit shorter than I imagined he’d be. Weird how fame and success puts on inches. He was maybe five-eight and looked every bit the globally famous rock star he was. But he seemed jaded. He was wearing a black suit jacket and T-shirt, leather pants and boots. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and looked like he had used a little too much gel in his spiky jet black hair.

Next to him stood his bodyguard, a massive, bald Maori in a tight-fitting suit. I guessed he weighed over three hundred pounds and had a chest measurement of at least sixty.

“You must be Craig Gisto,” Micky Stevens said taking a step into my office. He had a light, jaunty voice, and I could hear one of his songs in my head as he spoke.

“How did you work that out?”

“Got the biggest office,” and he glanced around. “You’re obviously Top Dog here.”

I smiled.

Johnny shook Micky Stevens’ hand and was still staring at the pop star with awe. Then he turned to the bodyguard.

“Oh, this is Hemi,” Micky Stevens said. “Looks really mean, yeah? But only with the enemy … otherwise, he’s a pussycat. Aren’t you, Hemi?”

“What can we do for you?” I asked.

He spun on his heel, lowered his voice. “Can we go … somewhere?”

We walked into reception. The pop star gave Colette a brief, professionally flirtatious smile. She’d been chewing the end of a pen and staring at the young man with a lost expression on her face.

I took Micky and Hemi along the hall and indicated to Johnny he should come with us. “We’ve a comfortable lounge through here,” I said. “Coffee?”

“Got anything stronger? Hemi’ll have water … sparkling if you have it …”

I left the odd couple with Johnny and went back to my office. I had a bottle of Bourbon in a small bar against the wall.

“Great choice, man!” Micky Stevens said as I came back, sat on a sofa opposite and watched him pour a generous measure.

I waited for him to take a sip, but he downed it in one. Meanwhile, Johnny had found a bottle of San Pellegrino and a glass. He handed them to Hemi.

“That’s better.” Micky Stevens smacked his lips.

I decided to wait for him to start talking, but he seemed a bit
confused. “Not used to this sort a thing,” he began. “Feels like we’re in a Raymond Chandler novel!”

I was a bit surprised by that and must have shown it.

“I’m a big reader. Hated it at school, of course, but on tour there’s only so much drinking, snorting and screwing you can take … gets boring.” He produced a megawatt smile. “Anyway.” His face straightened and he looked quickly at Hemi who was pouring water carefully into a glass held in sausage fingers. “I’m here about Graham Parker.”

Both Johnny and I looked at him blankly.

“My manager. He’s quite well-known, dudes!”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not really …”

“No probs.” Micky had his hands up. “You got another?” He flicked a nod at the Bourbon.

“Sure.” I refilled his glass. “So what is it about Mr. Parker?”

Micky knocked back his second big Bourbon, wiped his mouth and said, “Well, you see, it’s like this. Graham Parker’s trying to kill me.”