ThornyDevils (23 page)

‘Apparently, Frank’s not doing it. He’s ill,’ Peter replied. ‘A girl called Poppy Reynolds is doing it.’

‘Never heard of her.’ Bob drummed the table with his fingers. ‘She’ll have to be good. What’s she like?’

‘Pretty. Cool. She wouldn’t tell me anything. Looks a little like Lady Di.’

‘I wonder what the O’Learys think of that?’ Bob smiled.

‘So where do we go to from here?’ Peter asked. ‘Do we run with it now?’

‘We wait,’ Stella interrupted. ‘I think the O’Learys are planning more.’

‘I agree. What was it Conceetah told you about some Russians?’ Bob asked.

‘Nothing,’ Peter replied, ‘except that they were from Sydney.’

Then that’s what we should follow up. Stella, pack your bags. You’re on the next flight to Sydney. Let’s find those Russians.’

‘What about my secret informer?’

‘Let Peter handle him. I’ve got a feeling about this.’

‘Okay, Bob, but it’s a needle in a damn haystack. Where do I start looking?’

‘Start at King’s Cross.’ Bob paused for a moment. ‘And we’re really dependent on what Sam is bringing out of there. He’s getting some good stuff but if he’s in danger, get him the hell out of there.’

‘I won’t risk his life, Bob,’ Peter declared. ‘No way.’

‘What about the lawyer?’ Stella asked. ‘This Poppy you’ve been talking about? Can you get close to her? We really need to know why the O’Learys and Tony Donarto have declared war on each other.’

‘She’s not going to tell me that,’ Peter said dismissively. ‘She’s protecting the O’Learys. Why would she want to tell me anything?’

‘We have to try,’ Bob growled. ‘Some lawyers like to talk. Some of them certainly like the sound of their own voices.’ He paused for breath. ‘Use your charisma on her. By the sound of her, she seems pretty ditsy, dressing like Lady Diana. Now, why doesn’t she dress like Princess Margaret? She’s more my style.’

‘Get close? I’d love to,’ Peter blurted, as Stella and Bob exchanged glances. ‘What I mean is I’d love to be able to do that. It’s going to be difficult. I’ve tried ringing her but she hasn’t returned my calls.’

‘Forget that,’ Stella suggested. ‘You gotta go to her. Invade her personal space.’

‘Use that animal charm of yours,’ Bob teased.

After trying to be charming and ingratiating himself to the receptionist, Peter soon found himself back on the footpath in front of Grace and O’Connor in William Street. The receptionist had the personality of a piranha. He sat on the bench directly outside, staring up at the three storey Victorian bluestone, despairing that this would probably be the closest he’d ever get to Poppy. Grace and O’Connor was one of the most prestigious law firms in Melbourne, an Irish Catholic firm that had sprung from humble origins, representing the unwashed, the unwanted and unrepresented, as well as the masses of Irish peasantry who had arrived in Melbourne during the gold rush and never left. The firm had prospered alongside its clients. It was their privilege to represent the doyens of Melbourne’s Irish Catholics as well as the Catholic Church and the Australian Labor Party, both cornerstones of Melbourne society. And, once it had been registered, the Painters and Dockers Union.

Now it seemed they also represented the O’Learys. If only he could find out about that relationship.
If only.
He sat there for another ten minutes, thinking, scanning the entrance in the hope that Poppy might appear.
It’s times like these I need coffee.
He wandered into the adjacent coffee shop and ordered his usual double espresso.

He pulled up a chair in the corner nearest the window, overlooking Grace and O’Connor’s front door and waited. And waited. It was his hunch that Poppy would have to come in for a coffee sooner or later, assuming that she was a caffeine addict, like most Melbournians.

By the fourth espresso Peter was wired and ready to give up,
when Poppy floated into the café. The very sight of her sent his heart thumping out of his chest. Poppy always seem to float. She was ethereal. Either that or he was in the throes of a caffeine overdose.

He was hovering, ready to stand up and meet her at the counter, but she noticed him first. She exchanged a few words with the waiter and then glided towards him. Peter felt dizzy and had to sit down again.

‘I haven’t seen you here before, Mister Clancy,’ Poppy purred, pulling out the chair opposite him. Peter was taking deep deliberate breaths and wishing he had ordered tea.

‘Call me Peter. Please,’ he stammered, ‘please join me, if you’d like.’

‘As I said,’ she repeated, ‘I haven’t seen you in this coffee shop before.’

‘I just happened to be in the area,’ he lied, ‘and I was desperate for a coffee.’ He knew he had being caught out when Poppy raised one eyebrow.

‘Would I be wrong if I assumed that you’re telling me porky pies, Peter?’ she responded icily. ‘You know what I do for a living. Are you trying to test my lie detector?’

Peter felt himself breaking into a cold sweat. Fortunately, she was momentarily diverted by the arrival of her order. She picked up her cappuccino and sipped, observing Peter as he fumbled in his trouser pocket for a handkerchief that wasn’t there. He picked up a napkin and wiped his hands.

‘Okay,’ he admitted, ‘I’ve been trying to contact you but without success. I went to the office but the receptionist gave me the quick heave-ho.’

‘So you met Roxy the Rottweiler and survived? We call her our receptionist and attack dog. You’re persistent, I have to admit. I guess that’s the nature of your job,’ Poppy chuckled. ‘It’s an admirable quality.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘You already know that I can’t really disclose any information to the press.’

‘Would it help you if it was all off the record? You know, in confidence. I just wanted to clear up a few background details. For my own peace of mind.’

‘Off the record? That has to be consensual.’

‘It does.’ He matched her tease and raised it. ‘So I’d be consenting and you’d be consenting.’

‘Mmm. But I have another request,’ she said as she brushed back her hair. ‘No recorders or listening devices.’

Interesting
, Peter thought. He could always tell those who were media savvy and those who weren’t. The uninitiated always merged journalist with spy, for some reason. They assumed all journalists were outfitted with electronics. He was surprised by Poppy’s naivety. ‘Nothing of the sort,’ he declared, opening up his jacket. ‘I don’t even have a pen and notepad.’ He, like so many old-school journos, had trained his mind to remember verbatim what was said at an interview. Even ones who drank as much as Peter. It was a talent ranked equal to shorthand.

‘I can’t talk about the details of the coming hearing,’ Poppy replied, frowning.

‘Of course,’ he reassured her.
Shit. Not going to get anything here.

‘So I don’t know if I can help you much.’

‘Okay,’ he began. ‘But the O’Learys are clients of your firm. For how long?’

‘Off the record,’ she emphasised. ‘They have been clients of the firm for a long time.’

‘Years?’ he ventured.

‘Decades.’

‘What sort of work have you done for them?’

‘All manner of work. The family is one of our big clients.’

‘Do they keep you busy?’ he asked.

‘Well, they operate one of the most successful family companies in Melbourne. They have many interests.’

‘Anything to do with importing goods from South East Asia?’

‘As I said, the family has many business interests. South East Asia is the main focus,’ she replied evasively.

‘Okay. I’m going to bite the bullet here,’ he said. ‘I’m not interested in wasting my time or yours. Is one of the commodities they import heroin?’

A wry smile curled one corner of Poppy’s lips. She took a slow, deliberate sip from her coffee. She lowered her cup and stared at him intensely before replying. ‘That’s rather fanciful, Peter. The O’Learys have worked hard for their money. And honestly.’

He pondered both her statement and her non-verbal cues. He always theorised that he could pick a lie by the number of blinks,
mouth movements and speech stumbles. She might have an inbuilt lie detector, but he had the best bullshit meter in the business—only his bullshit meter wasn’t registering that well with Poppy Reynolds.

‘I know they were connected with the Painters and Dockers Union,’ Peter continued.

‘If you had done your research you have known that Patrick O’Leary spoke out against the corruption of the union at the Royal Commission.’

‘So, why did he disappear for all those years and suddenly reappear recently like a long-lost Nazi? I’m confused.’

‘You have a rather fertile imagination,’ she said with a schoolgirl giggle. Peter thought it was cute. ‘Have you ever thought of leaving journalism and becoming an author? You could be the next Frederick Forsyth. Possibly.’

‘You like Frederick Forsyth?’ Peter asked.

‘One of my favourites. And Robert Ludlum.’

‘Really,’ Peter’s eyes widened. ‘Same here. We’ll have to compare books sometime.’

‘I think we’re getting off track. Or is that your intention?’

‘No. I’m not here to confuse you, Poppy. If I do that I’ll only confuse myself. Where was I again?’

‘We were discussing Frederick Forsyth,’ she smiled.

‘Yes.’ He began his questioning again. ‘Do the O’Learys and Tony Donarto know each other and, if so, how do they know each other?’

Poppy sipped her coffee again and looked away. For a moment he detected that she was either looking very uncomfortable or his bullshit meter was bullshitting him.

‘They have been business associates in the past,’ she offered after a long silence.

‘What sort of business?’ he asked quickly.

‘They had an importing business.’ She stared back at Peter as if she was challenging him to blink first. ‘Coffee from South East Asia.’

‘Coffee? Do they grow coffee there?’

‘In Vietnam.’

‘I always thought it came from Brazil,’ he observed. ‘You said they were in business. Past tense.’

‘It didn’t work out. The government wanted too much. Communist governments aren’t sharing, benevolent entities, you might say. Off the record, of course.’

Peter suspected that she reinforced the ‘off the record’ statement whenever he closed in on the action.

‘So this is what I think happened. Feel free to interrupt. Patrick O’Leary was there, somewhere in Asia, happily running a Vietnamese coffee plantation for years. The government—or someone else—gets greedy and it all falls apart. He returns to Australia. He reports back to Tony Donarto that the coffee plantation has gone belly up and they call it quits. Happy ending? No. Next minute, Pat’s dead and his son is dead. All over coffee. And you didn’t interrupt me. Interesting,’ Peter said as he raised his left eyebrow at Poppy.

‘I didn’t, did I?’ she said uneasily. ‘But that’s exactly how it played out. It’s all off the record, of course.’

‘I’m going out on a limb again here, Poppy,’ he began. ‘Is there a war going on between the O’Learys and the Donarto camp?’

‘War sounds rather strong,’ she replied. ‘Maybe there are other people involved. Maybe it’s all just a coincidence.’ She checked her wristwatch. ‘Have to get back.’

‘And why haven’t the police arrested any of the Donarto camp? They seem to have concentrated on the O’Learys.’

Poppy grabbed her handbag. ‘You’ll have to ask someone else that, Peter,’ she smiled. ‘So, you fancy yourself another Frederick Forsyth, then? This could be an interesting back-story to your book. It will be a great book. But I don’t know if you should use coffee as the cause of all of the friction. After all, it is only coffee.’ She arched her eyebrow and rose from her chair.

Peter stood up. ‘Well, thanks for the background information,’ he said.

‘I guess that means you’ll stop pestering me,’ she murmured.

‘If something comes up, can I contact you?’

‘I think I’ve given you all the off-the-record information I can supply. You wouldn’t want me to lose my job because I’m an informant?’

‘But we haven’t compared our book collection yet,’ Peter grinned.

‘You’re very forward,’ she replied with mock indignation, ‘to think you can lure me into a corner both professionally and personally.’

‘Forgive me for trying,’ he shrugged.

Poppy shook her head and left the table. She stopped when she reached the door. ‘Donnini’s. Friday at seven. I don’t like to be kept waiting. You do like Italian, don’t you?’

Peter nodded in agreement. ‘Italian’s fine. And by the way, neither do I.’

***

I’m walking on sunshine
, Peter sang in his head as he hurried along William Street back to the Stag. Or possibly he was singing it out aloud, judging from the strange stares he was getting from passers-by.
So what. I’m happy. I’ve done a good interview and got a date out of it. How good is that? Now get back to the office and get down the information
.

Yes, he could memorise whole interviews, only these days not for very long. He was already beginning to wonder what it was Poppy had said about the coffee plantation, exactly. He was still humming when he reached his cubicle back at
The Truth
. Katrina and The Waves
.
He dropped into his chair and started scribbling keywords into a notepad as quickly as he could. O’Leary, Tony, coffee, Vietnam and, of course, the most important: the date on Friday night. Now he could relax.

From the adjacent cubicle, Stella was belting out
New York, New York
, Ethel Merman style.
If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere…

‘Why are you singing?’ he asked as he spun his chair around towards her.

‘Why are you?’ she rejoined. ‘By the way, that’s a lousy song.’

‘I’m coming over.’ He sauntered around to Stella’s cubicle, adding, ‘Ethel.’

Stella was leaning back on her chair. She looked very chuffed with herself. He pulled up a chair beside her.

‘He wants to do an interview,’ she announced happily, but I’m flying to Sydney.’

‘Who? The informant?’

‘No. No. Tony Donarto.’

‘The great Tony Donarto wants to speak to
Truth
reporter Stella Reimers?’ he laughed. ‘I don’t believe it. You were able to persuade him? He hates the media, especially
The Truth
.’