The Story of Danny Dunn (54 page)

‘Why didn't he simply resign, get the hell out of there?' Franz had asked Bumper.

Bumper laughed. ‘It's a different world, Mr Landsman. Green's a small-time crim with nowhere to hide and no personal protection. If he buggers off, next thing he's arrested on suspicion of rape or armed robbery, with the girl and witnesses standing by, or the shopkeeper identifying him in a police line-up. Worse still, he's invited on a trip out to sea. So, when there was a fire, Riley made a deal with him – he takes the rap, is guaranteed a light sentence, and there's a reward waiting for him when he gets out.'

‘But how does he know Riley will pay up when he comes out?'

‘It's a matter of honour among thieves, Mr Landsman. It's arranged through a third party who holds the money for a small percentage. Besides, Riley is not a criminal as such. He simply uses crims as the strong-arm part of his operation. He has to keep his word or they will lose respect. He, or his syndicate, are believed to own seventy or eighty of these cheap doss houses; they couldn't run their business without goons riding shotgun.'

‘And you've managed to persuade him to go along with us and tell the truth?' Franz asked.

‘Maybe,' Danny had laughed. ‘It will depend on how we handle things at the inquiry. We're up against some formidable and determined opposition, and I keep reminding myself that this is only a coroner's inquiry, that I'm not trying to expose the whole corrupt system – police, councils and politicians. All I'm trying to do is to get Riley to commit perjury, and the whole mess will begin to unravel if the coroner believes there is sufficient evidence to go to trial. The one thing we've got going for us is the coroner, Harry Prout. He's his own man and I don't believe he can be bought.'

Franz turned to Danny with a grin, shaking his head. ‘And to think all I have to worry about is the previous owner of a property nicking the Victa lawnmower and the garden tools in a private transaction. Last week I nearly had a transaction involving a 500-acre prime stud property in Bowral fall through because the previous owner's wife dug up all the daffodil bulbs in the garden. His lawyer somewhat bizarrely claimed that what was underground wasn't included in the contract.'

‘Riley's not going to be easy to pin down, Mr Dunn,' Bumper Barnett said. ‘I did what you asked and picked up what I could on him. Apart from what we already know there isn't a lot of dirt attached. Your man Riley is prominent in business and social circles, as I think you know. He's pretty well connected and sits on the boards of several government and charitable bodies. Not much old money left but he's from one of those Sydney families who have single-digit numberplates on their cars. He married well and his wife inherited a packet in mining stock, most of it BHP. She's on the Black and White Ball Committee and very hoity-toity. Here's the joke: one of his charities is the Parramatta Boys' Home!'

‘You're right – he's got his arse well covered. That's the problem with social position and money: if you achieve the former it doesn't much matter how you make the latter.'

‘Providing you don't get caught and you're not Jewish,' Franz added.

Bumper Barnett paused and rubbed his chin. ‘You know, as a former cop, something worries me in all this business with Lenny Green.'

‘Oh?' Danny asked curiously.

‘Yeah. I asked myself, why would Riley bother to go out to visit Green after the third meter-board complaint? It would have been much more sensible to send a goon to beat the crap out of him, and leave it at that. He'd achieve the same result, only he, Riley, wouldn't be directly involved . . . implicated. It doesn't make sense.'

‘You're right, it doesn't,' Danny agreed.

‘So I dropped in to see Perc.'

‘Galea – the crime boss?' Franz asked.

‘Yeah, Mr Dunn's mate,' Bumper grinned, looking at Danny.

‘Don't ever say that in public, Bumper. I represented him in court; we got lucky, that's all,' Danny said quickly.

‘Mr Dunn, he thinks the sun shines out of your backside. He called a mate on the phone and they were yakking on a bit and then Perc puts down the phone. “It seems your man Riley is some kind of pervert, Bumper,” he says to me. “He gets off on seeing people beaten up.”

‘“Yeah? I've known mongrel cops like that,” I say.

‘“No, no,” he says, “not like a bad cop. He don't do the beating up himself – he's too much of a fucking coward.”

‘“Just watches?”

‘“Yeah, sort of.”

‘“So? Why not go to Rushcutters Bay Stadium, Saturday-night fights, two guys knocking the living shit out of each other?” I suggest.

‘“Nah, that don't work for him. It's blokes he's got power over. He needs the – how can I put it – the personal power, that's what turns him on.”

‘“You mean he's a sadist?”

‘“That's a big word for me, mate. I'm a wog,” Perc says. “The fact that he can personally cause some poor bastard to become mincemeat is his shtick.”'

‘That's Yiddish!' Franz exclaimed.

Bumper ignored the remark. Shtick was a common underworld expression. ‘Galea says his mate swears Riley cracks a fat, panting and groaning, watching some poor bastard take a beating at his instigation. It happens somewhere to someone in one of his doss houses every week.' He paused for emphasis. ‘Riley didn't visit Lenny Green to teach him a lesson for complaining about the meter board. Green was simply that week's opportunity to get his rocks off. That week's power play! Jesus!'

‘Christ! Glossy Denmeade's boots!' Danny exclaimed. ‘That's why he chose someone from my company and not his own. As an officer he had the power to humiliate Glossy, make him beg, but had he done the same in his own company his blokes would talk about it. Glossy's boots were famous in the entire battalion. He would have known we were being shipped out and as company sergeant major I couldn't get back at him. Maximum result, minimum fallout, the dirty bastard!'

Now, with Lenny Green in the witness box, Ray Onions began with the usual questions, after establishing that Green had been the manager of the premises in question for the past four years, and that Green couldn't imagine what might have started the fire.

‘Mr Green, you were left pretty much alone to run the premises as you saw fit. Is that so?'

‘Yes, sir, that is correct.'

A sense of torpor descended over the court as the barrister assisting the coroner reiterated the statements made by Green to the police and in turn received largely monosyllabic replies. Several of the court reporters got up and left – they would phone in later to get the predictable findings: death by misadventure, with a rap over the knuckles for Green, the manager, under the
Landlord and Tenant Act
because of the barred windows and locked door. There would be a light sentence to follow when the matter came to court. It was a half-column piece in the back half of the newspaper, less if it was a busy news night.

Ray Onions concluded his questioning. Steel Hammer was regretting that he'd bothered to read the brief he'd been sent; there had been no barking, no finger pointed accusingly at the witness demanding answers, no scope for pushing witnesses around, no bombast required, not a single caution from the coroner. He was practically falling asleep. It was apparent to him that the deal, whatever it was, had been well organised, and even Nifty Dunn, for whom he had a measure of respect, had been ‘well briefed'. It was going to be an easy day at the office and Riley had promised to see what he could do about tickets to the Black and White Ball. He was going to return home to his wife tonight a hero.

Harry Prout, now in a thoroughly bad humour, glared at Danny, ‘Any questions for this witness, Mr Dunn?'

‘Yes, Your Worship.' Danny stood. ‘Mr Green, I ask you now to listen carefully. Were the facts stated by you in the police record of interview an accurate account of your actions and those of others prior to and during the fire?'

Green hesitated. ‘No, sir, they wasn't.'

Franz swallowed and tried to suppress a smile. Green was on side. A sudden excited murmur ran through the courtroom and there was a loud bang as the front legs of Hammer's chair hit the deck.

Harry Prout came alive and banged his gavel, calling for order. Then, with silence restored and the reporters poised over their shorthand pads, he said, ‘Mr Green, I must caution you, making a false statement to the police is a very serious offence. Are you aware of the trouble you may be causing for yourself?'

‘It ain't gunna be half as bad as what they threatened, what they did to old Charlie McFadden last year,' Green replied, his fear palpable.

‘Oh? Can you tell the court what these threats were, Mr Green?' Danny asked.

‘Like Charlie, if I didn't cooperate, keep me mouth shut, they was gunna dump me a mile out t'sea and tell me to swim home.'

‘They? Who made this threat? Is that person in this court?'

Lenny Green pointed to Riley. ‘Mr Riley, sir. He come round the mornin' after the fire.'

Steel Hammer jumped to his feet. ‘Objection! Your Worship, I must protest. This witness, now a self-confessed liar, is making unsubstantiated and extremely serious allegations against my client, one of this city's most respected businessmen.'

‘Please sit down, Mr Hammer! It is the business of my court to examine all the facts relating to this tragic matter and you may be assured I shall do just that.' Harry Prout shot Danny a barely concealed look of encouragement. ‘Mr Dunn, you may continue with this witness.'

‘Mr Green, as the coroner has pointed out, lying to the police is a serious offence. You must have believed Mr Riley was capable of carrying out his threats?'

‘Objection, Your Worship. My learned friend is leading the witness.'

‘Objection sustained. Counsel will refrain from leading the witness.'

‘Let me put it to you this way, Mr Green. Did you have good cause, based on past experience, to believe that Mr Riley would carry out this alleged threat?'

‘Yes, sir, he – Mr Riley – had Shocker Docker with him. When I complained the last time about the meter board, two months back, it was him who knocked the livin' sh— – sorry, sir – that beat me with a pickaxe handle in the backyard, with Mr Riley watchin' on.' Lenny Green sniffed then, looking directly at Riley, and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘They left me unconscious, lying in the blackberry bush.'

‘Is that David Docker, the notorious standover man?'

‘Yes, the same, sir. Him and Badman Burgess, they do the beatings for Riley. He, Burgess, give me a proper hidin' two years ago.'

‘Objection, Your Worship,' Hammer cried. ‘We have no substantiation for this alleged assault, no witnesses, and we are being asked to accept the word of a recidivist.'

‘Objection overruled. Did I not hear your client earlier applaud Mr Green as a capable and reliable manager in whom he placed full trust? Would you like the clerk of the court to read his exact words from the record?'

‘No, Your Worship. My client is now conscious of having totally misplaced his trust.'

The coroner turned to Danny. ‘However, Mr Hammer's point is valid, Mr Dunn. Can your client substantiate his claim of the alleged beating?'

‘Yes, Your Worship. I intend to produce a witness who is ready to testify under oath that he saw the beating take place.'

Danny resumed his examination of Lenny Green. ‘Mr Green, you have testified that you alerted Mr Riley on three separate occasions to the potential risk of the meter board causing a fire. Are you an expert in such matters, an electrician, perhaps?'

‘No, sir, it was Sammy Laidlaw told me.'

‘The deceased? One of the victims in the fire?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And he was an electrician?'

‘No, sir, he done massage.' This brought a gush of laughter from the gallery. ‘But he said he knew about these old meter boards; he said he was apprenticed to his father, who was an electrician before the war, but after he come back he didn't take it up again.'

‘But you had reason to believe he knew what he was talking about?'

‘Yes, sir. He showed me where they'd put the copper wire across the two fuse boxes.'

Danny turned to the coroner. ‘Your Worship, I intend to bring an expert witness to the stand to explain in simple terms this matter of the copper wire.' Turning back to Green, he said, ‘And you communicated on three separate occasions with Mr Riley, warning him of the danger posed by the meter board?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And can you prove this?'

‘Yes, sir. I told the rent collector, Garry Griffin, about the meter board, then I made an entry in the book we have to keep to record any trouble . . .  er, complaints from the boarders, and then there are the letters.'

‘Letters?'

‘Yes, I wrote to Mr Riley. I took a carbon copy of the letter and posted it to meself and then I posted the original to his office in Double Bay. I done this all three times.' Lenny Green looked decidedly pleased with himself. ‘So, Mr Riley got me letter. I posted the first carbon to meself and the second one I give to Gary to give to Riley.'