Dark City Blue: A Tom Bishop Rampage (9 page)

Bishop stole a car and drove out to Ascot Vale. The house was a three-bedroom bungalow that lacked the freshly painted charm of its neighbours. All that was left of the yard was dry and dead, and one of the front windows had a crack that ran vertically from one edge of its peeling frame to the other.

He knocked on the door and asked for Con Taylor.

‘The cunt’s not here, and fuckin’ why should I tell you anyway?’

‘Come on, Trisha. I just want to know where Con is.’

A dog barked from somewhere inside the house, a large bastard by the sound of it. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Trisha snapped over her shoulder. It did as it was told.

She leant against the doorframe. ‘Christ, I’m sorry, Bishop. Con just gives me the shits, that’s all. You want a coffee?’

Bishop followed Con Taylor’s widow down the hall. Twenty years ago she was something to look at, but two decades of hard drinking had left her haggard and sagging in all the wrong places. Her hips hung over the edges of her jeans, stretch marks accented by fake tan. She wore a G-string.

Families were always the last to know when a member was gunned down. Sometimes they found out via the television. Trisha hadn’t turned hers on yet and Con Taylor wasn’t liked enough for anybody to pay her a visit.

They sat in the kitchen. Trisha pulled a pack of cigarettes from the top of the fridge, lit one and poured him a cup of coffee from the percolator. She collapsed into a chair and swung her grubby feet up on the table.

Bishop took a sip.

‘How is it?’

‘Fine.’

‘Don’t suck my dick, Bishop. It’s yesterday’s shit.’

‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’

She coughed up a wheezing chuckle. ‘So you wanna know where Con is, huh?’

‘Or who he’s with.’

‘He owe you money? Fuckin’ owes every cunt money, that cunt does.’

The dog started up with its barking again.

‘Shut up, you fuckin’ piece of shit!’ she yelled, turning back to Bishop. ‘Fuckin’ kill that cunt, I will.’

‘The thing is, I need to borrow one of his CIs for—’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. ‘What’s it worth to you?’

‘Doesn’t Con look after you?’

‘Yeah, he looks after me real fuckin’ well. That’s why I live here in this big beautiful mansion and wear all this expensive type shit.’ She butted her cigarette in the ashtray and immediately lit another. ‘So, cashola?’

Bishop dug around in his pocket and pulled out a twenty. He laid it on the table.

She looked at the crumpled bill as if it had just taken a shit on the rug. ‘You pigs are all the same.’

He pulled another twenty. She rolled her eyes but snatched up the notes anyway. ‘He’s with Mick Evens. The two are like a couple of fags. You find one, the other’s not far.’

‘Mick Evens … Ex-cop?’

She nodded. ‘Con don’t take a shit without Mick standing by with a bog roll on hand. Runs a joint now, called Dreams or something.’

A couple of knocks rattled the front door. The dog started up again.

‘Fuckin’ hell. Hang on, I’ll be right back.’

Bishop knew it would be uniforms armed with the news of Taylor’s death. He looked at the shitty room around him, then pulled three fifties from his wallet, all the money he had, and left them on the table for her. By the time Trisha was halfway down the hall, he was out the back door and gone.

The sign on the door said, ‘Dreams’. The name promised too much. Wedged between a couple of accounting firms, it was the kind of place you had to look for. Just another titty bar in a city full of them. When Mick wasn’t running the club, he was running illegal whores out the back for twenty bucks a fuck. Cheap, but you got what you paid for. He worked SOG for twelve years before the VPD bumped him over a handful of brutality charges. The loss wasn’t mourned.

Bishop descended the filthy staircase into the neon hell. The inner doors were manned by a bouncer who was missing a couple of teeth and a substantial IQ. He held up his hand and managed to string a couple of words together. ‘Ten bucks,’ he slurred.

Bishop badged him.

The brick shithouse stepped aside. ‘You gonna need this,’ he said, holding out a rubber stamp with an inverted number seven on it. The same rubber stamp Taylor and Rayburn had been branded with.

‘I’ll pass.’ Bishop pushed through the doors.

The place was busy for a Friday arvo. Music pumped out of the speakers. Sleazy girls swung around the dirty poles, while others gave lap dances and flaunted their fake tits in the faces of those with nothing better to do on a Friday arvo than stare at fake tits..

Bishop found Mick Evens sitting in a booth along the rear wall. He was enjoying a steak, a beer and a stripper with a lobotomised stare, shuffling her feet on his table. Evens looked about ten years younger than what he was, wore his hair to his ears and too much gold around his neck. The rings on his fingers tapped against the fork in his hand as he ate.

Bishop slid into the booth opposite him.

‘Wudda yer want?’

‘I want to know who Justice is.’

Evens wiped his mouth with a dirty napkin and looked up at the stripper. ‘Fuck off.’

She let out a sigh, shuffled her way off the table and disappeared into some other dark corner of the bar.

Then he fixed his gaze on Bishop. ‘I don’t have a clue what you’re on about.’

‘So why send the girl away?’

He shrugged.

‘I want the fifteen mil you, Taylor and the others knocked off three days ago.’

‘I haven’t been a cop for a long time, haven’t seen Con or any of those cunts for years. So why don’t you walk out of here while you’ve still got all your fuckin’ teeth?’

Mick Evens didn’t see it coming.

Bishop pulled the fork from his plate and slammed it through the top of Evens’ hand.

Blood across the table.

Evens let out a squeal so Bishop slapped him.

‘Who’s Justice, Mick? Where’s the cash?’

It took Evens a couple of moments to catch his breath, but he eventually managed to spit a few words. ‘You’re gone, pig,’ he said. ‘Point of no fucking return.’

His gaze shifted over Bishop’s shoulder. The brick shithouse of a bouncer was coming up fast. Bishop turned and pulled his piece, aiming it at the bouncer’s groin. ‘No skin off my nose if your balls exit this world.’

The bouncer froze.

Bishop turned his attention back to Evens. ‘You got something you want to tell me?’

Spit flew out of the gaps between his clenched teeth. ‘Get fucked.’

‘You know what you did,
I
know what you did.’

‘They’ll kill me.’

‘What do you think I’m going to do: run you a hot bath?’

Bishop yanked out the fork and slammed it back in again. The tips dug into the table.

Evens went pale. Sweat soaked his shirt. ‘No one knows who Justice is. And, and the cash. It’s safe,’ he hissed. ‘I don’t know where. You think they’re going to tell me?’

Bishop hit him with the weapon, breaking his nose. Pulled back. Pushed the barrel in his face. Hammer back. Blood rolled over the muzzle.

Mick Evens pissed his pants.

Bishop’s finger squeezed the trigger.

‘Wait!’ he squealed. ‘I swear, I don’t know who Justice is. Nobody does, but I know who, who …’

‘Spit it out.’

‘I got ’em a guy. Planted him in the truck, had him working legit. A driver.’

‘Who?’

‘You’re not going to like it.’

‘Let me be the judge of that.’

Evens took a couple of run-ups at stuttering the name, then eventually the whole thing came out. ‘Jay Franks.’

Bishop sized him up, then lowered his gun. He could have been lying, but nobody lied after they pissed their own pants.

Bishop stripped the weapon. Cleaned it. Put it back together. When he was finished, he lit a cigarette and scanned the underground car park through the windscreen: a mother wheeling a pram; a couple of kids blowing off school; an employee collecting trolleys. Nothing to worry about.

A government issue pulled in, circled the car park and came to a stop. Ellison climbed out, scanned the area. Bishop flashed his headlights. She caught the signal and headed over. Just before she reached the car, he slid the .45 into the back of his jeans.

She climbed in and tossed a folder onto the dashboard.

‘Put your hands on the windscreen,’ he said.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

Bishop nodded.

She put her hands on the dashboard and he frisked her. To get to the underground car park, Bishop had sent her to three different locations, tailing her the whole way to make sure she wasn’t being followed by anyone else. When he finished patting her down, she leant back in the seat.

‘Happy now?’

Her perfume engulfed the cab, so Bishop cracked a window. ‘Better safe than sorry.’

‘Yeah, well, fuck, I went to a lot of trouble getting that.’ She stabbed a finger in the direction of the case file on the dash. ‘I shouldn’t even be here; everyone’s out looking for you.’

Bishop picked up the file. ‘What did you find?’

‘Jay Franks, twenty-seven, 5’10, long blond hair. Tattooed to the hilt. One conviction, served three years. The youngest brother of Mickey and Val Franks. All of them three generations deep; crime is in their blood. Grandfather ran prostitutes and gambling, Dad shifted into cocaine in the ’80s and was very active during the waterfront wars. He was even suspected of having a hand in the killing of Gary Shannon. Nowadays, the three boys specialise in ecstasy and meth. Their inner circle is small, the rest just contractors; they never get orders directly, which is how the Franks boys have managed to stay in business. Well, that and the fact that they are known for being extremely violent. In short, they don’t fuck around. Jay is the black sheep in a family of black sheep. They don’t trust him with anything. But they also have a problem they don’t know about yet.’

‘Like what?’

‘There’s a UC in their crew.’

Bishop was impressed. ‘How’d you find out?’

‘A name kept popping up. At first I thought it was just a CI, but some dickhead handler left in a badge number. I pulled the guy’s file and put two and two together.’

Bishop flicked through the pages. ‘He’s been under nine months.’

‘Long time with the same crew.’

The photo clipped to the file showed a clean-cut, honest-looking badge. A rookie. After nine months, it was doubtful those words could still be used to describe him.

Ellison lit a cigarette, smoothed out her skirt. She was building up to something. ‘They say you killed Con Taylor.’

‘People say a lot of things.’

‘You’re really going after Justice, aren’t you? I want in. I want to help.’

‘You
have
helped,’ Bishop said, holding up the folder. ‘Thanks.’

‘Are you fucking serious? You can’t do this by yourself. Half the department is out looking for you.’

‘Ellison, look, trust me. You’re young and—’

‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘Stop pouting.’ He softened his tone. ‘Go home. Call in sick for the next couple of days. Stay as far away from this thing as you can.’

She stared him down for a couple of seconds. ‘What don’t I know?’

‘Forget about what you don’t know.’

‘It wasn’t just Taylor, was it? There’s others?’

‘I don’t know that,’ Bishop lied. ‘You can’t go around asking questions.’

She stared out the window, her mind in overdrive.

‘Ellison, promise me.’

‘Is this thing that big?’

Bishop nodded.

Jay Franks was a fuck-up from the beginning, with a few aggravated assaults, a couple of B&Es and a quarter share of a rape to his credit. The youngest in the family, he also had the most to prove. Bishop guessed that Jay had branched out on his own, trying to show his brothers he wasn’t the useless piece of shit they thought he was.

The Franks lived at the Lincolnshire Arms, an old pub that had been in the family for decades, but hadn’t been in business for the past couple of years. It sat at the end of a residential street, three storeys tall with blacked-out windows and fading blue paint on the walls.

Bishop pulled over to the kerb and climbed out. The street was silent except for the distant hum of traffic from the freeway a couple of blocks away. Two wooden, skinny double doors served as the main entrance to the pub. He knocked twice. Instantly, one opened. A shotgun barrel stared him in the eye.

‘Tell Mickey, Tom Bishop is here to see him.’

‘No fuckin’ Mickey here.’

He tried to lean away from the dangerous end of the shooter. It followed him, so he pulled his badge. ‘I can come back with some friends, but neither one of us want to do it like that.’

After a moment’s thought, the owner of the shotgun pushed open the other door. He turned out to be a kid, thirteen, fourteen, no older. Bald-headed, bare-chested and covered in the beginnings of a tattoo shirt. Bishop followed him into what used to be the public bar. ‘Wait here,’ the kid said, disappearing through a curtained doorway.

Small shards of light managed to push their way through the blocked-out windows, exposing the dusty bar and cigarette machine that had been busted open and cleaned out. Bishop shuffled his feet on the brown carpet. All the tables and chairs that would have littered the floor were now stacked to the roof in the far corner. There wasn’t a bottle on any shelf and he doubted any of the taps worked.

Mickey Franks barged through the curtained doorway, followed by the kid. In a certain light he might pass for respectable, with his silk shirt, slacks and expensive shoes. That was until his tattoos poked from his collar and cuffs. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he yelled.

‘Detective Tom Bishop.’

Mickey turned to the tattooed kid with the shotgun.

‘You let a cop in here?’ The kid looked sheepish. Mickey slapped him. ‘Next time I’ll have a brick in my hand.’ He snatched the shotgun. ‘Get out.’

The kid took off. Somewhere in another part of the pub, a door slammed.

Mickey held the shotgun like a walking stick. ‘Badge or no badge, I don’t mind disappearing a cunt. Know what I mean?’

‘I’m just here to have a couple of words with Jay.’

Mickey’s face formed a V. ‘Jay isn’t here.’

From behind the curtain emerged the middle Franks brother, Val. Compared to Val, Mickey was a sweetheart. He’d spent more years behind bars than free. He was taller, lankier, with long hair and a handlebar moustache. Behind him stood the UC. Nine months undercover had changed him from the rookie in his file photo; now he had a look in his eye, the kind that men who have seen a thing or two possess and wished they didn’t.

Val snorted. ‘You bastards can’t leave us alone, can you?’

‘Just a couple of words with Jay; that’s all I want. I don’t mean any disrespect and I’m not here to start trouble. I don’t care about the things he’s done. I just want some information.’

‘On what?’ Val snapped.

‘On the crooked cops he’s working with. Anything else is incidental to me.’

Mickey and Val swapped a glance.

‘They already have him,’ Val said.

Bishop stared, confused. ‘Major Crimes picked him up? Rayburn?’

Mickey nodded as best he could with what little neck he had.

A breeze flowed through the room, just enough to part the curtained door for a moment, revealing a small arsenal on a table in the beer garden: machine guns and hand grenades enough for a small army.

‘You boys planning a little something?’

None of them said a word.

‘I want in.’

‘Get the fuck outta here,’ Val said with a laugh.

‘Major Crimes pulled that job. The same crew that picked Jay up were working with him. Inside, he won’t last the night. They’ll kill him and they’ll make it look like he killed himself.’

Mickey nodded. ‘We know.’

‘You’re going to need someone to get you into those holding cells; I can do that.’

‘You’re a cop.’

Bishop pulled his weapon and fired a round into the UC. ‘Would a cop do that?’