Ecstasy Lake (25 page)

37

While I had been in hospital Bert had arranged for my car to be brought from the marina to Tasso's hotel. I took my arm out of the sling and drove with difficulty to Chris and Paul's and parked in their garage. I had several days' worth of recordings from Hardcastle's office that I hadn't listened to, so I played them as I lay on the bed. The voice activation spared me long hours of silence, but it didn't spare me the numbingly banal conversations. Hardcastle's secretary was in his office every five minutes with trivial questions, and Hardcastle spoke to her in monosyllables, perhaps so she would go away more quickly. He also spent considerable time on the phone, speaking to contractors and bureaucrats and the occasional miner, as well as Sonia, and seemingly achieving little. Some conversations were about Black Hill's application for the exploration lease, and from what I could gather I didn't think their proposal would be better than ours.

Then he had a visit from two people. I recognised their voices but hadn't previously associated them with each other. The topic of the conversation surprised me, too. I checked the time and date; the visit had taken place the previous Monday, not long before my encounter with Harlin in the mangroves. A whole lot of things started to come clear. I spent time on Melody's tablet, mostly playing around with satellite maps. I called Tasso.

‘I have a tape you might want to hear.'

‘What's it of?'

‘I'll tell you when I see you. Can I come over?'

‘Is it urgent? I'm with the boy. And his goddamn mother.'

‘I guess it can wait till tomorrow.'

‘That would be better.'

‘Have fun playing happy families. See you tomorrow.'

After I hung up I thought for a while, and remembered Julia. I retrieved her business card from my car and gave her a call.

‘It's Steve,' I said. ‘We met at White Pointer the other night. You pepper-sprayed me.'

She laughed. It was a merry sound. ‘Unintentionally. That was fun, wasn't it?'

‘Yeah.'

‘How are your eyes?'

‘Fine, thanks.' There was a pause. ‘Actually, I wanted to ask you a professional question. You're a partner at Global Realty, right? The real estate agent?'

‘I am. You want to buy a house? I'm not in sales.'

‘No, I don't want to buy a house.'

‘What do you want?'

‘It's a bit hard to explain over the phone. Can we meet?'

‘Sure.'

We arranged to meet at seven at a bar in town.

‘I'm going to meet a woman at a bar,' I told Melody. I had taken a shower and put my arm back in its sling.

‘Alright.'

‘You don't mind?'

‘I don't own the copyright, Steve.'

‘It's business.'

‘Fine.' She looked tired.

‘Are you okay?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘It won't take long.'

‘I might go to bed early.'

‘Alright.'

Julia was drinking a martini when I arrived. We made eye contact across the room and she nodded.

‘Good to be able to see you,' I said. She grinned and we kissed cheeks. She was wearing a power suit and fresh lipstick and her hair was tied back in a tight professional knot. She gestured to the barman to catch his attention, pointed at her drink and held up two fingers; she mouthed ‘Two more'.

‘What happened to your arm?'

‘I got shot.'

‘By Tiny? Our friend at White Pointer?'

‘No, not by Tiny. Actually by his boss.'

She frowned at her drink as if it was displeasing her, which I don't think it was, and she finished it off with a snap-back of the head. She let it go down. ‘Was it because of the pepper-spray incident?'

‘No, nothing to do with that. Don't worry, you're not on a hit list.'

‘Oh, I wasn't worried about that. Actually I wouldn't mind. Anything to jazz up a dull life.'

She was still holding her empty glass. She tilted it and looked into it.

‘You married?' I said.

She laughed. ‘No, my life's not
that
dull. Dull may be the wrong word. But how great can life be when I hang out in bars waiting to be picked up? Single woman drinking alone, Steve. There aren't too many things sadder than that.'

The barman deposited fresh drinks and I gave him twenty-five.

‘Thirty, all up,' he said. I gave him another five and he went away. I tasted the martini and it was almost worth half the price.

‘I'm sorry. I'm not a cheap drunk,' said Julia.

‘I don't know you well, but I'd say you're neither cheap nor a drunk.'

‘You're sweet.' She said ‘sweet' as if the word bored her. She had hard eyes, but I didn't think she was as tough as she made out. ‘You're also wondering if you've given me enough small talk yet. Go on, ask your professional question.'

‘I need to give you the background first.' So I told her some of the story about how I had become involved with a bunch of drug manufacturers and how I had visited one of Harlin's clandestine drug labs. I didn't tell her any names.

‘You
have
been having fun,' said Julia. ‘Makes my pepper-spraying incident seem small-time.'

‘Not at all. You saved me. Tiny was going to strangle me.'

She didn't seem to hear. ‘It also makes my attempted seduction of you seem mistimed.'

‘Is that what it was?'

‘You know that's what it was.'

‘Any other time I would have been a pushover. For you.'

We grinned at each other. Then she looked at her drink, and when she looked up her smile had turned professional.

‘So what do you want from me?'

‘The druggie guy told me that he and his mates rented places for a year each, although they only ever used any one place for three months. So I suppose they always have at least four properties on the go. Maybe they have a sort of dummy company that they use to rent the places.'

‘And you think that since I work for a real estate agent I might be able to find out who rented the place you visited, and then what other properties they've rented.'

‘Exactly.'

‘It doesn't quite work like that.' She took a sip of her drink and closed her eyes as it did its work. She opened them again. ‘There isn't a single database. If it was rented through Global I might be able to do a cross-check, but not for other agents.'

‘I see.'

‘And I doubt they would have used a single company. If it were me, I would set up three or four shelf companies. It's easy to do and it would make it much harder to spot a pattern.'

‘It's possible. The guy was proud of his business model.'

‘I can take a look, anyway. Give me the address of the lab.'

I gave her the address, which I'd obtained from the internet.

‘I'll let you know tomorrow', she said. ‘I have your number.'

We chatted while we drained our glasses.

‘I googled you, you know,' she said. ‘After you called.'

‘Any hits?'

‘Well, there are a hell of a lot of Steve Wests. But I think I found you. There's a fair bit on the web about a boofy footballer who played for the Crows. I assume that was you.'

‘I wasn't boofy.'

‘There's not much about you after the Crows, though. You're a bit of a mystery man.'

‘So are you. A mystery woman.'

‘Did you google me?'

‘No. But it's a mystery to me why you're hanging out at bars, filtering stray men.'

She smiled sadly and looked down at her glass. ‘You know how it is, Steve, or maybe you don't. You have a couple of failed relationships, and eventually you get sick of trying.'

‘I know how it is, I guess.'

‘Flings are less trouble. Hell, they can be fun. Depending on the man.' She glanced at me. ‘I'm guessing you're not into one-night stands.'

‘Not so much these days. Like another drink?'

She twisted her mouth as she thought about it. ‘No I won't, but thanks.' She kissed me on the cheek again. ‘I'll be in touch.'

I didn't go back to Chris and Paul's straight away. I ordered another fifteen-dollar martini and sat at the bar and wondered what I would do if Julia came through with an address. Barenfanger wanted to know it, and I assumed he wanted to know it so he could smash the place up and maybe break a few more skulls. Tarrant wanted to know it, presumably so he could close the place down and make a few arrests. My darker side favoured the Barenfanger option.

I arrived back at Chris and Paul's just before nine. Chris greeted me at the door, a serious look on her wrinkly face.

‘She's had a slip,' she said.

‘A slip?'

‘It happens. Be gentle with her.'

Melody had slipped on a bottle of vodka. She was curled up on the bed, her back towards me and her face towards the bottle, which was lying smugly next to her as if it had just finished making love to her. It was about two-thirds empty. I removed my sling and lay next to her and with the help of my good arm I put my sore arm over her so my hand rested on her stomach.

‘Did you drink all that tonight?'

She shook her head. Her hand had found mine. Then she nodded.

‘Why did you start?'

She shrugged. ‘Dunno.' I worked my nose into the thicket of her hair. ‘Feeling a little low, I guess. Do you hate me?' She was slurring words.

‘Of course not.' I had a mouthful of hair. ‘We'll deal with it.'

‘How'll we do that?'

I didn't say anything for a while. I just breathed in the smell of her hair. ‘Can I pour the rest down the sink?'

A long pause. ‘Alright.' Another long pause, and I thought she had fallen asleep. Then she said, ‘How was the sex lady?'

‘The sex lady?'

‘The one you went to see.'

‘I told you it was a business meeting. Nothing to do with sex. I don't have sex with every woman I meet.'

‘Bad luck for you.' She was speaking very slowly. Then she was quiet for a while and then there was the hint of a snore. I extracted my hand from her grasp. She stirred but didn't wake. I grabbed the bottle of vodka and took it to the bathroom. I looked at it for a while and thought of taking a couple of swigs, just to help me sleep. I uncapped it and sniffed it, but I was sick of drinking. I poured the contents into the sink. ‘Not so smug, now, eh?' I said to the empty bottle. I felt like breaking its goddamn skull.

38

The phone rang the next morning just before nine. I was still in bed, and Melody was flaked out beside me.

‘It's me, Julia. I think I know where their lab is.'

‘Excellent.' I rolled out of bed and hunted for a pen. ‘How did you do it? Did they use the same company name?'

‘I haven't even looked at our database yet.'

‘So how do you know about the lab?'

‘I guess you haven't listened to the radio this morning.'

‘No, I just woke up.'

‘Go find one.'

We said goodbye and hung up. There was a radio in the kitchen. Paul was loading the dishwasher and Chris was making tea.

‘How is the young lady?' said Chris.

‘Still asleep.'

‘Good.'

I switched on the radio but had to wait a few minutes for the 9 am news. It was the top story.

‘
An apparent shootout between rival gangs north of Adelaide has left four people dead and at least eight injured
,' said the newsreader.

‘Is that …?' said Paul. I held up my hand.

‘
Police were called to a farmhouse near Truro north-east of Adelaide at about five o'clock this morning after residents reported gunfire. The four dead are all reported to be male. A police spokesperson said the farmhouse may have been used as a clandestine laboratory for the manufacture of illicit drugs. A number of firearms have been seized at the scene
.'

I put my hand down. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘To answer the question you were about to ask, it's a fair bet it was a shootout between the Mad Dogs and Harlin's Hoodlums.'

‘Drugs, guns, shootouts. What on earth is happening to this state, Christine?' said Paul.

‘It all started going downhill about the time this young man arrived,' said Chris, gesturing at me. I grinned at her.

‘He's a trouble-maker,' said Paul.

I returned to the bedroom with a big glass of water, and Melody was still asleep. I watched her for a moment, her breathing deep and steady and her face moving occasionally as she dreamed. I put the water on the table next to the bed and searched the room, and then I went to her room and searched that. No more bottles. I returned to the bedroom and sat on the bed and used her tablet to check the
Advertiser
's website. The story had been posted, and there was a map showing the location. I called Bert.

‘Looks like we missed a gunfight.'

‘It's about time there was some violence in this state that didn't involve you.'

‘Feel like going for a drive?'

‘Sure.'

Melody had woken. She propped herself on her elbow and drank some water.

‘How do you feel?' I said.

‘A little shitty.' There were smudges under her eyes. I kissed her forehead. ‘Do you still love me?'

‘Sure. Even when you smell like a public bar.'

‘Go away.' She sank back onto the bed. ‘But do come back.'

On our way to Truro we passed an ambulance heading into town, no siren. ‘Bringing in the dead,' said Bert. We listened to the ten o'clock news, but there was no additional information.

‘How's Tasso?'

‘He seems fine. Same as usual.' A helicopter was hovering in the sky to the north. Bert gestured at it. ‘I guess that's where we're headed.'

We drove in silence for a while as the helicopter held its position. ‘Soon the media won't need helicopters, they'll use spy drones,' I said.

‘I bet they already do.'

‘Can you fly a chopper?'

‘Sure.'

‘How about a drone?'

‘Easy. Don't like 'em much, though.'

‘Is there anything you can't do?'

‘There's not much I can't drive, fly or shoot.' He glanced at me, which he rarely did while driving. ‘The Space Shuttle, maybe. Although it's probably not that hard.' He allowed a small smile to hover on his face for a couple of seconds.

‘You're wasting your skills being Tasso's driver.'

‘Not at all. Love working for him. Good money, good boss, plenty of time to do my own thing.'

‘Married?'

‘Not any more.'

‘Children?'

‘No.'

‘Regrets?'

‘No.' Bert looked at me again. ‘What's with all the questions, Steve?'

‘Nothing's with them. Just curious. Have you seen Fern since the Afternoon of the Long Scissors?'

‘No.'

‘I wonder where she is. Has Tasso tried to contact her?'

‘I think he's tried calling.'

‘Did you know about the boy?'

‘Yes, I knew about young Harry. I drive Tasso to the house sometimes.'

‘I can't believe he kept it secret from the rest of us all this time.'

‘There was a reason.' Bert adjusted the mirror, for no reason.

‘I know. But now the shit has hit that particular Fern.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Did Hiskey know?'

‘I wouldn't have thought so. Fern might know, Steve, but hopefully the rest of the world doesn't. It would be better kept a secret, you know. For the sake of the boy.'

‘I see your point but don't like the chances. Someone gave that photo to Fern.'

‘Yeah.'

We had driven through Kapunda and taken the Sturt Highway to the north-east. Just before Truro we turned right onto a minor road. The cops had set up not far off the highway at the entrance to a long limestone driveway. Several cop cars were parked on the road, blocking it, and at least another dozen cars were parked along the side. Someone was putting up a small marquee. Three separate television crews were manning cameras on the roofs of their four-wheel drives, and I recognised from television a pretty young female reporter, looking at herself in a mirror. A uniformed cop waved us to a stop. Bert lowered his window.

‘Where are you gentlemen headed?' said the cop. Bert looked at me.

‘The shootout,' I said. ‘We just want a looksee.'

The cop grinned sourly. He was already sick of tourists. ‘Sorry, fellas, no rubberneckers allowed. Turn around and go home.'

‘Is Tarrant there?'

‘Detective Inspector Tarrant?'

‘Yeah. Tell him Steve West is here and I've got information for him.'

The cop stared at me for a moment. ‘Wait here.' He strolled away, speaking into his mike. We waited. It was a warm morning. The density of flies was much higher here than in the city and they were coming in the window.

‘
Do
you have information for him?' said Bert.

‘A tidbit. Enough to justify wheedling our way in. I hope.' Beyond the cocky fence, the driveway cut through a dusty paddock for a few hundred metres to a farmhouse nestled in a clump of trees. More cop cars were gathered there, and a cop caravan.

The uniform returned. ‘You'll be escorted in.' He pointed across the paddock. ‘They've set up a command centre in the caravan. Tarrant is there. He'll see you.' He stepped in front of us to allow a cop car to pass, then waved us through. ‘Follow him,' he said.

The owner of the property had recently tried to turn the driveway into an avenue by planting a row of trees on either side of it, but the trees were stunted and sick, and some looked like they wouldn't make it through summer. The bare brown paddock was suffering under a hot shimmer of air.

The driveway forked at a clump of mature eucalypts and did a biggish loop around a single-storey brown brick house. I counted six cop cars parked at the fork. Our escort drew to a stop near the caravan. It had the braiding and insignia of the South Australia Police on its side. Beyond it, about a dozen men and women, most of them in uniform, were walking a line through dead grass in the direction of the house. They were marking spots on the ground with little flags and photographing them, and they were picking things up from the ground and putting them in bags. The helicopter was still hovering. Bert unfolded a large floppy hat and put it on.

‘Worried about getting too much sun on your bald spot?'

‘No, I just don't want to be on TV.'

A cop had emerged from our escort car. We got out of our car and followed him to the caravan. The cop knocked on the door of the caravan and went in. It took a while, but eventually Tarrant emerged, donning a repugnant pair of sunglasses as he did.

‘Well, well, well,' he said. ‘Steve West and his ex-military sidekick. Didn't like the idea of someone being shot up without you?'

‘They're picking up cartridges, I take it,' said Bert, waving towards the line of stooping cops.

‘Yeah.'

‘It must have been a hell of a fight. They've picked up at least forty, just since we've been here.'

‘It was a pitched battle,' said Tarrant, working his resident chewy. ‘The last one like it was in Afghanistan. Take a look at these.' We followed him to a trestle table at the base of one of the eucalypts, covered by a tarpaulin. ‘Lift up the tarp,' said Tarrant. ‘But try not to show the chopper.' Bert lifted the edge of the tarp and peered underneath. There were a dozen or more large clear plastic bags, each of them tagged, each containing a nasty-looking weapon. Bert walked the length of the table, raising the tarp as he went, then turned and looked at Tarrant.

‘I see what you mean,' he said. ‘This is an Austeyr,' he said to me, pointing at one of the bags. ‘It can fire nearly nine hundred rounds a minute. Probably pilfered from the Australian Army. They're using them in Afghanistan.' He pointed to a couple of other bags. ‘Shotguns. There's a machine pistol, that's a Beretta. I don't even know what this one is. Home-made, by the look of it.' He counted the weapons, put the tarp down and looked at Tarrant. ‘There's fifteen guns here. Fifteen shooters?'

‘We're not sure how many shooters there were,' said Tarrant. ‘We have four dead and eight wounded, but some escaped before the first cops arrived. They were smart, by the way, those two cops. They came up from Kapunda, but they pulled over on the highway up there'—Tarrant waved to the highway formation on the far side of the big brown paddock—‘with their lights flashing and called for backup. They could see the muzzle-flashes from there, but the battle died pretty quickly after they arrived anyway. A few of the shooters legged it across the paddocks, and our boys saw two cars speed off. There might have been more weapons, for all we know. We can probably work it out with forensics, but that could take months.'

‘I'm surprised there's only four dead,' said Bert.

Tarrant nodded. ‘We estimate about four hundred rounds were fired, all up. Fortunately, no one seems to have known how to use these things properly. Plus it was dark.'

‘Found any of the ones who got away?' I said.

‘We got a couple on foot, and we're still looking for others.'

‘Maybe you should ask the helicopter to do some scouting for you.'

Tarrant looked up at it. ‘Yeah, it's really starting to piss me off. But ours is already out looking.'

‘So who was doing the shooting?' I said.

Tarrant shook his head. ‘Uh uh. I've told you all I'm going to tell you, most of which the commissioner will tell the media in a few minutes anyway. You said you had information. Let's have it.'

‘I'm not sure it's relevant.'

Tarrant glared through his awful sunglasses. ‘It better be.'

‘It depends who was shooting. Was it Harlin's gang?'

‘It might have been elements of his so-called gang.'

‘And the Mad Dogs?'

‘It's possible.'

‘Because yesterday Barenfanger and I had a chat. Barenfanger is president of the Mad Dogs.'

‘I know who Barenfanger is. I didn't know you knew him.'

‘I didn't. He introduced himself.'

‘And?'

‘He wanted me to tell him where Harlin's drug lab was.'

‘And did you?' I could see Tarrant's mind working and his blood pressure rising. ‘Fuck, West, if you started this little civil war I'm going to … Fuck, I don't know what I'm going to do.'

‘Calm down, Tarrant, or you'll swallow your chewy. I didn't tell him squat. For one thing, I didn't even know where Harlin's lab was. Is it here?' I pointed at the farmhouse.

‘I don't believe you.' Tarrant spoke the words slowly. He looked at Bert. ‘Do you believe him?' Bert might have assumed it was a rhetorical question because he stayed quiet, or maybe he didn't believe me either. ‘Let me tell you why I don't believe you,' Tarrant said to me. ‘I don't believe you because the funny thing is that this place
does
happen to be a clandestine lab. One of the wounded
does
happen to be Barenfanger, and Harlin's gang
does
happen to have been involved. All this the day after Barenfanger asked you to set it all up.'

‘I don't know how Barenfanger knew about this place,' I said. ‘Because I didn't know about it and therefore I didn't tell him about it. Honestly.' I pulled off my sunglasses so Tarrant could see my honest eyes.

‘Here's another funny thing, West,' said Tarrant. ‘Barenfanger said he knew about this place because he received a tipoff yesterday.'

‘Did he say from whom?'

‘He said it was anonymous. Bullshit. You know how these gangsters never name names.'

‘It wasn't me. I didn't know about this place. And even if I did, I might not have told him.'

‘Might not?'

‘I'm being honest here, Tarrant. I don't like Harlin or Coy or any of those gangsters. Part of me would have liked to have set up this gunfight. I don't know what I would have done if I'd known about this place. But the fact that I'm here telling you about the conversation I had with Barenfanger should tell you I wasn't the one who tipped him off.'

Tarrant stared at me for a while. He waved away a fly. ‘You can put your sunglasses back on, West. I'm not falling for your eyes.'