Follow the Money Page 5

  Chang almost choked on the dregs of his flat white. ‘Christ almighty, Hardy. Do you have any idea what you’ve got yourself into?’

  Chang told me that part of his brief was to investigate links between Asian and Lebanese criminals and that marine insurance scams were one of the areas of concern, along with drugs, people smuggling and extortion.

  ‘What’s the name of your task force?’

  Chang smiled. ‘It’s a serious investigative unit, so it doesn’t have a silly name. The people we’re interested in launder drug and extortion money by buying boats, insuring them, scuppering them and collecting the insurance. Then they collect on the salvage. Sometimes they rehabilitate the boat altogether and go through the process again. They have people inside the insurance companies playing along, also some inside finance companies. It’s complex, with all sorts of legal and accounting tangles.’

  I said I knew Nordlung had been involved in a dodgy insurance deal. ‘But he isn’t Asian or Lebanese.’

  ‘His wife’s Chinese.’

  ‘Her name’s Gretchen.’

  ‘She changed it. We think Nordlung was up to his balls and beyond in this stuff. Something must’ve gone wrong and he paid a price. He wasn’t the only one. These people don’t hesitate to clean a slate. How did you know about Nordlung?’

  I produced DS Caulfield’s card. ‘He told me. I assume you’re working together on this?’

  Chang smiled. ‘How much do you know about police politics?’

  I knew a fair bit from personal experience and talking with Frank Parker over the years. The old antagonism between the ‘kneelers’ and the ‘shakers’—the Catholics and the Masons—had given way to divisions over the roles of specialised units and the personalities of senior officers. With a bit of intra-state and federal/state rivalry thrown in. I watched Chang push the card away.

  ‘Not a team?’ I said.

  ‘Not exactly. Caulfield’s Serious Crimes. They’re not enamoured with a unit headed up by a slope with a Muslim 2IC. These are murky waters you’ve got into, Cliff.’

  So I was Cliff again. ‘Caulfield warned me off. Are you doing the same?’

  ‘No, I’m thinking you could be very useful.’

  * * *

  After all the years I’d spent in the investigation business I thought I’d seen and experienced just about everything, but Chang’s proposition was something new.

  ‘You want me to act as an undercover cop?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Why not? Are you telling me you’ve never pretended to be something you weren’t before?’

  ‘Of course not, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  I hadn’t identified my client (if that was the word), but it wouldn’t have taken Chang long to work it out. A quick call to Caulfield would do the trick whether they were simpatico or not. Although everything was getting tricky I still felt some provisional loyalty towards Standish until I could be convinced he didn’t deserve it. I thought about how desperate he’d looked in the restaurant and how little effect May Ling’s solicitude was having. Given her allure that was true desperation.

  ‘I’ve got an obligation.’

  ‘Of course you have, but you’ve already told me that the man you have an obligation to didn’t look comfortable with the Wongs and the Middle Easterner—let’s call him a Lebanese. I’m telling you that if your man is involved with the Asian/Lebo connection the best way you could help him would be to help get some of those bastards into court.’

  ‘And get myself targeted by the others?’

  ‘Come on, what else are you going to do—just drop it?’

  It was a good question. I hate loose ends and, as things stood, there were more loose ends than anything else. Quite apart from any duty to Standish there was the question of Richard Malouf. Was he alive or was he dead? I couldn’t just let it go.

  ‘I can give you phone numbers so that you can get me or Karim Ali, my number two, at any time twenty-four seven. And a number that can get you backup very, very quickly. As far as humanly possible, we’ll see your guy right for as long as you want. What d’you say?’

  I nodded agreement. Chang took out his mobile.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ I said.

  ‘Just hang on.’ He made a call and spoke briefly before closing the phone. ‘I’ve got a couple of people watching us just in case there’s someone watching you.’

  ‘I checked that for myself before you got here.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Just making sure. All clear, then. Thanks for the coffee. We’ll keep in touch.’

  He unwound his long frame and strolled away. Good exit line—I liked that ‘we’.

  Strange though the circumstances were, I decided to proceed as I would have in a normal investigation and that meant little more than following my instincts. I now knew where Standish was and, more or less, how to get in touch with him. There were only half a dozen flats in the McMahons Point block and I felt pretty sure I could bluff my way to the right one. Eventually I’d have to confront Standish and convince him he needed my help, but for the moment I was still intrigued by the initial question about Malouf. His wife had ID’d him: if he was still alive she’d lied.

  The address I had for Rosemary Malouf was in Bondi Junction. I phoned and learned that it was a travel agency. The man I spoke to said she was on her morning tea break. I made an appointment to see Mrs Malouf straight after her lunch break at two pm. I still had the card Malouf had given me at one of our brief meetings and I thought I could use it to get her attention at least long enough for me to make an assessment of her. I fitted in a gym session before driving there and even had time to have a look at the beach. I skipped lunch.

  The travel agency was a hole-in-the-wall kind of place with the usual array of glossy posters and advertisements for airlines and package tours. Tourism is down, they say, and this place certainly seemed to bear that out. I was the only person to go in and the smile on the face of the young man seated behind the desk faded when I told him why I was there.

  ‘Rose’ll be back any minute. Then I can get away for a job interview, thank God.’

  ‘Things are slow?’

  ‘Non-existent. Here she is.’

  A woman stepped into the office, taking off her coat. She was thirtyish, small, and pretty in a fair, fragile sort of way. ‘Off you go, Troy. Good luck. Good afternoon, Mr Hardy.’

  Troy grabbed a coat and hurried out as I sat on the other side of Rosemary Malouf’s desk. ‘Now what can I do for you? Troy said you were a bit mysterious on the phone. Are you planning a trip?’

  I shook my head and put Malouf’s card down on the desk. Her neat little jaw tightened as she looked at it.

  ‘What d’you want?’ she said. ‘I haven’t got any money.’

  ‘He has.’

  ‘He gambled it all away and then he was killed. Please leave.’

  ‘You identified him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Someone claims to have seen him alive.’

  ‘Go away.’ She reached into her bag for her mobile phone. ‘I’m calling the police.’

  ‘I’m working with the police.’

  A look of sheer terror came into her face. She dropped the phone and buried her face in her hands. ‘Go away. Go away, please.’

  There was nothing else to do. She kept her face covered and her hands were shaking. I picked up Malouf’s card and replaced it with one of my own. It was long out of date in describing me as a PEA, but at least it had my contact details minus the office number.

  ‘I’m sorry to distress you,’ I said. ‘You can contact me if you need any help.’

  She shook her head, keeping it low, and began punching numbers on her mobile. I left the shop and went to a coffee place on the other side of the street. I sat inside by the window and had a clear view of the travel agency as I worked on a watery flat white. Troy came back looking depressed. It was a miserable mo
ment for everyone.

  After about thirty minutes a car pulled up outside the travel agency. It parked illegally, but neither the driver nor the man who got out of the back seat seemed to care. He went into the shop. I paid for my coffee and took up a position where I could get a good view of whoever left the shop but couldn’t be easily seen myself. I had a state of the art mobile phone Megan had bought me. I hadn’t mastered all its functions but I knew enough to enable me to zoom and get a good set of pictures.

  I had the camera to the ready when the man came out of the shop and I caught him as he moved towards the car. He stopped and lit a cigarette before he got in. He was stocky and dark, wearing a well-cut suit and an unbuttoned, double-breasted overcoat. I recognised him: he was the man who’d joined the Wong brothers, May Ling and Miles Standish in the North Sydney Chinese restaurant.

  I downloaded the photographs onto my computer and sent them as an attachment in an email to Chang, asking him if he could identify the man. Chang phoned me almost immediately.

  ‘I’m sending someone to see you,’ he said.

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘He’ll explain.’

  ‘Come on, Stephen. Who are we talking about?’

  ‘My 2IC, Karim Ali.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Who’s the bloke in the photos I sent?’

  ‘It’s not something to talk about over the phone.’

  ‘Give me the name or I won’t be here when your guy calls.’

  ‘He’s Selim Houli. You don’t want to know him. Watch out for Karim, he’ll be there soon.’

  He hung up. I went to my notebook and saw the name I’d transcribed from Standish’s list: Selim Houli was one of the gamblers who was said to have taken serious money from Malouf. According to Standish’s notes, his club was the Tiberias in Darlinghurst Road. I Googled it while waiting for Chang’s offsider.

  The website for the Tiberias Club featured audio and video on its attractions. Its cocktail bar was a shimmering light show with barmaids in fishnets, g-strings and nipple pasties serving customers wearing expensive clothes and jewellery and having a wonderful time.

  There was a small dance floor with no more than twenty tables arranged around it in front of a small stage. A button click brought the scene to life with jazzy music playing and three men and three women performing a routine that stopped just this side of actual sexual activity in all its many and varied forms. It was only a brief sound and movement bite, but it was skilfully shot with effective lighting and the performers were top class. An expert, expensive, erotic production.

  Static again, the site provided details on provisional and actual membership, the club’s privacy policy, restrictions on photographic and recording devices and strict rules about insobriety. The floor show must have been on a loop, because it came on again without me activating it just as I heard the doorbell ring downstairs.

  I went to the door, looked through the peephole, and saw a dark-faced young man with a serious expression. I opened the door.

  I’ve been hit quite a few times in quite a few places, but the blow that came at me then was faster and more surprising than anything I’ve experienced. It drove the wind out of me, collapsed me at the knees, and seemed to blind me, all in an instant. Then time slowed down. One second I was standing and conscious and the next I was floating towards the floor. I tried to throw out my arms to shield myself against the fall but I couldn’t move them. I didn’t even feel the bump.

  When I came out of the fog I was sitting in a chair in what I sensed rather than saw was a darkened room, with plastic restraints around my wrists. I could hear something disturbing the air but couldn’t make out what. It was as though my senses had all been diminished; I couldn’t see, hear or smell properly.

  It’s said that ‘Gentleman’ Jim Corbett was paralysed by Bob Fitzsimmons’s punch that robbed him of his world heavyweight title. I’d never believed it but I did now. A kind of paralysis had made me useless back in the doorway of my house and something similar, but even more debilitating, was happening now. What’s that noise? What’s that smell? Why can’t I see?

  A light came on and I lifted my hands to shield my eyes from it. At least I could move and close my eyes. The noise stopped and I realised it had been music, coming from not so very far off. The light swung away and I opened my eyes. A man I recognised as Selim Houli was sitting opposite me about a metre away. He was smoking a cigar.

  ‘Mr Hardy,’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’

  I was in my shirtsleeves and I tried to scratch at my upper left arm where I felt a pain, but the restraints stopped me.

  ‘Yes,’ Houli said. ‘A small injection to tranquillise you.’

  For a second I wondered whether I still had the power of speech. As it came out my voice was a raw croak. ‘I can put that on the list of the laws you’ve broken.’

  He laughed and expelled aromatic smoke. ‘Oh, that’s a very long list indeed, depending on your point of view.’

  I said nothing and concentrated on getting myself back together. Houli was obviously someone who liked to talk and talkers often do themselves much more harm than good. As my vision cleared I looked around the room. It was a sort of storage space with boxes and furniture stacked up. The two chairs we were sitting on had clearly been brought in for the purpose. I had a sense of it being below ground level. Nothing social went on down here normally.

  Houli looked to be in his forties with thinning dark hair and a five o’clock shadow. He wore the suit I’d seen him in earlier at Bondi Junction with the jacket unbuttoned. White business shirt, discreetly striped silk tie, gold watch and a gold half-crown on one of his front teeth. He was olive-skinned with dark patches under his eyes. He flicked ash from the cigar onto the cement floor.

  ‘You told Rosemary Malouf that you believed her husband was still alive.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Don’t be foolish, Mr Hardy. You’re in a very dangerous position. I urge you to cooperate.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Have you seen Richard Malouf?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Have you spoken to anyone who has seen him?’

  Not the best interrogative technique, showing that you want something quite badly. Unfortunately I had nothing to bargain with, except silence.

  Houli sighed. He dropped his cigar to the floor and stepped on it. ‘I can’t tell whether that means yes or no. I need you to make it clear to me. How would you like to meet Yusef again?’

  ‘If he’s the guy who hit me, I would.’ I held up my hands. ‘Without these.’

  ‘No.’ He got up, crossed to the door and rapped on it. It opened and the young serious face I’d seen through the peephole was looking at me again. He wore jeans, work boots and a T-shirt with the short sleeves fully filled by biceps and triceps. Houli nodded to him and he walked over towards me. I started to stand but he kicked me in both shins—right boot to left shin, left boot to right shin. The pain shot up my legs. A soccer player. I sat down hard.

  ‘It’s very simple for you,’ Houli said. ‘I asked you two questions and you will answer. You are a small man, Mr Hardy, and you have become involved in something much too big for you. I made it my business to find out a little about you. You’ve had some successes and some failures, would you agree?’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’

  ‘I haven’t had any failures and I don’t intend to start having them.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Luck has nothing to do with it, but you’re right if I understand you correctly. I am under a certain amount of pressure which is why you are under pressure now.’

  I began to revise my opinion of him. He was a talker, but he was also intelligent and very dangerous. By admitting that he was under pressure he’d upped the wattage on his threat to me. People behave according to what’s at stake and for Houli it was clearly something big.

  I said nothing but closed my eyes as a wave of nausea hit me.

  The leg pain warred
for dominance with the deep ache higher up where Yusef had first hit me. The vile taste flooding my senses made me angry, not compliant. I ignored Yusef and stared at Houli thinking how much I’d like to displace his gold tooth. A blow to the left side of my face was followed by one to the other side. A searing pain went through my head and I was sure that an eardrum had broken, maybe both. I called them every obscene name I could think of and tried to stop my head from drooping.

  Yusef hit me again several times and I kept my mouth shut. I could feel blood dripping somewhere. A low blow had me retching. I heard a click and saw Houli lighting a cigar and blowing on the tip to make it glow brightly. He moved closer and Yusef ripped my shirt open and then stepped back.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘he’s had a heart operation. Any more could kill him, like—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Houli snapped. ‘But you’re right, we don’t want that.’ He puffed on the cigar, looked at it and shook his head. ‘I don’t think he knows anything useful anyway. He’s just a dumb stubborn arsehole blundering about. Give him a jab, load him up with something, and dump him.’

  They left the room and Yusef came back quickly with a plastic syringe in his hand. I tried to fend him off but he was too quick for me and I felt the needle sink into my upper arm. The room started to swirl around me and I heard myself giggling. Yusef hauled me up and dragged me across the room. I struggled, still laughing; my head hit the door and I blacked out.

  I was staggering through an amusement park full of flashing lights and jangly music with the sounds of horns honking and people shouting and with the ground slipping sideways under my feet. I almost fell but got myself upright and lurched on. Something large, smelly and noisy brushed by me and I laughed at it and aimed a kick but it had gone. Then there were more people with pale, blurry faces and angry teeth. They parted in front of me, peeled off, and I felt as if I was riding a surfboard with the waves buffeting me, threatening my balance.