Master's Mates Read online

  I eased down into a plastic chair after flicking away an empty Winfield packet. I nodded. ‘It’ll do.’

  He snorted. ‘Haven’t got any dope on you by any chance?’

  ‘No.’

  He shrugged. Despite the broken arm the musculature was intact, but it wouldn’t be unless he got into some physiotherapy pretty soon. ‘How’s Reg doing?’

  ‘On his uppers. Reckon he sold you out?’

  ‘No, we’re mates in this fuckin’ mess. You must be the genuine article. How much money are we talking? Sorry I can’t offer you anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. The money part doesn’t work like that. That’d be like telling the reserve price at an auction. Penny gave me a taste before I bought. You’re going to have to do the same.’

  ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘Rory McCloud.’

  ‘Disappeared. Suspicious circumstances.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’re on “go”.’

  Montefiore excused himself and left the room. I heard water running and when he returned he’d made an attempt at combing his hair, had washed his face and had shrugged into a creased but clean blue sports shirt. He had beach scuffs on his feet and I could smell toothpaste over the competing smells in the flat, mostly dirt, take-away food and stale tobacco.

  He sat where he’d sat before. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you a drink or anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘So you’re paying Reg ten grand.’

  ‘Nine or ten.’

  ‘Must think all his birthdays have come at once. Just for putting you on to me. I reckon what I can tell you must be worth twenty, twenty-five.’

  ‘Could be. I’ll have to be the judge.’

  He scratched at his stubble. ‘Problem would be living to spend it and getting Fay out with me.’

  ‘Fay?’

  ‘Girlfriend. Fay Lewis. One of the Kiwi Kuties.’ He found a leaflet among the mess beside his chair and passed it over to me. It advertised the Kiwi Kuties, performing nightly at the Salon de Fun—‘lap’s dancing and stripe tease’ among the attractions. The leaflet showed three blondes in minuscule outfits top and bottom plus white Stetsons and high-heeled knee-high boots. Lots of stars and spangles, a suggestion of the American flag. Good war-against-terrorism stuff. The three women looked identical.

  ‘Fay’s the one on the end,’ Montefiore said.

  I shrugged. ‘Left or right and how can you tell?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she’s more a part of this than you think. She’s got a photograph you’d be very interested in.’

  ‘You’d better get me interested, then,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to. Might catch something.’

  Montefiore wasn’t a gifted storyteller. He backtracked, repeated himself and fumbled for the right expression. Also, he threw in some French words here and there and I had to ask for a translation. What he had to say boiled down to this: after the property deal fell through the five Australians decided to hang around Noumea for a while looking for other opportunities. McCloud, Penny and Montefiore were approached by a man with a proposition—help to set up Stewart Master as a drug smuggler taking a small amount of heroin into Australia and they’d be in for a big reward. Not only cash in hand, but the green light from the federal and state police to handle a big marijuana consignment going into Australia. The stuff was coming down from South-East Asia and Pascal Rivages was handling the Pacific trans-shipment.

  McCloud’s reaction was to threaten to go straight to the police and to tell Master, who was away elsewhere on the island. ‘They’ll fish him and his car out of deep water somewhere one of these days,’ Montefiore said.

  Penny said he wasn’t interested one way or the other, which disappointed the man because he’d thought of Penny’s yacht as the delivery vehicle. The idea was to land the waterproofed bales on a reef off the coast and then move it to the mainland. Penny was warned anonymously to keep his mouth shut and certain things began to go wrong with his boat. He was burgled and lost most of his available cash. Montefiore reckoned that Mr X and Rivages wanted him to stick right there in Noumea where they could keep an eye on him.

  ‘I played along for a while to see if I could make a dollar out of it. I never had any intention of going through with it and when that became obvious, Rivages had Sione work me over. But good.’

  ‘Rosito?’

  Montefiore shook his head. ‘Gabe’s got plenty of money. More than the rest of us put together. All he’s interested in is cunt. They knew they couldn’t get to him.’

  Montefiore said he didn’t know how it was done but the plan went through. Master was nabbed and convicted. He presumed that Rivages got his shipment through and that everything was hunky-dory.

  ‘Question one,’ I said. ‘Who was this mastermind?’

  ‘I don’t know his name.’

  ‘Tell me everything about him you can think of.’

  ‘Jeez, I wish I had a drink.’

  ‘Later. You’re doing well. You’ll be able to afford a few.’

  ‘Okay. Australian, mid-thirties, medium-sized, maybe a bit bigger. Not that fit. Ordinary looking, mousy hair, nothing unusual except . . . I’d swear blind he was a cop. He had the manner, you know? Sort of special in his own fuckin’ head.’

  I nodded. ‘Scars, mannerisms, habits? Come on.’

  Montefiore scraped at his stubble as if the rasping sound would trigger a memory. ‘Didn’t smoke. Drank mineral water in the pub. Jesus, yes, he had BO. He was scrubbed clean, shaved close, short back and sides, fresh shirt and daks, but he still had this whiff of BO.’

  ‘Good. Question two. Why’re you still around and in this dump?’

  Montefiore had taken a bad beating and was down on his luck, but he wasn’t a man without self-esteem. From the look on his face I could tell he’d have hit me if he’d been able and he wanted to tell me to go to hell because he couldn’t.

  ‘I ran out of money and this is the best I can do. At least Rivages doesn’t know where I am.’

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  ‘I reckon he’s still making up his mind what to do with Reg and me. He doesn’t like us knowing what we know. He’s got fingers in lots of pies—property, gambling, politics. We could damage him if we talked. Equally, if we went missing like Rory it wouldn’t look good.’

  ‘Can’t he buy the cops?’

  Montefiore shook his head and looked tired all of a sudden. ‘No. Not here. He’s obviously in with that Australian cop so I don’t know if we’d even be safe back at home. If I get out of this I’ll take off for somewhere else as quick as I can. New Zealand maybe, Fiji, Bali . . .’

  ‘Okay. You’ve earned some money, but I’ve thought of something else. If Rosito’s not in on it, why did he get in touch with Rivages so quickly?’

  ‘Just playing safe. Silly fucker reckons Pascal can help him with the widow. Like I told you, he—’

  ‘Yeah. What about you and this Kiwi? Let’s get back to her, and you and her.’

  ‘I’m crazy about her. She’s amazing. She’ll go with me if I’ve got money.’

  I grinned. ‘That doesn’t sound like a match made in heaven.’

  ‘Get stuffed. See this?’ He grabbed at his hair. ‘I’m not a kid any more. I’ve led a weird, rough life and I don’t expect to make old bones. I want to grab what I can while I can.’

  ‘Fair enough. So, this photograph?’

  ‘She’s got a Polaroid of the cop. Not good, but good enough.’

  I sat quietly and thought it over. Montefiore went out of the room and he seemed to be moving more easily all of a sudden. Hope’ll do that to you, I guess. But it could’ve been something else. He came back with two mugs.

  ‘Instant coffee. No milk. Best I can do. What’re you thinking about, Hardy?’

  ‘One of the things I’m thinking is about how everyone I meet in this bloody thing seems to be lying to me. My client told me none of Master’s
associates spoke French. You do. Rosito told me Rivages didn’t speak English; he does. He also told me Penny was trying to sell his boat. He says he won’t. See what I mean?’

  ‘About the languages, everyone does that here—pretends not to speak or understand. It can give you an edge. Hey, there’s a guy on the local TV, speaks good English. He asked the station to pay for some language training. They wouldn’t. So now he won’t talk a word of English. Uses an interpreter on the program, costs the station dough, and everyone knows he understands just about every word that’s said to him in English. See?’

  I sipped some of the coffee. For black instant it wasn’t bad. French Nescafé? ‘What about you, Montefiore? You’re lying about something. I know you are but I just can’t put my finger on it.’

  It was his turn to drink coffee and ponder. He shook the hair out of his eyes, put the mug down on the floor and let his arm slip out of the sling. He extended the arm and flexed his fingers. He thumped the heel of his cast on the floor a few times while keeping his eyes locked on mine.

  ‘I’m coming good, Hardy. I was the light-heavy kick-boxing champion of Queensland. Two men held me while Sione went to work. I’m hoping to get a shot at him, man to man.’

  11

  I WASN’T interested in tackling Sione myself, but that was Montefiore’s problem. I agreed to pay him fifteen thousand for his information as well as the photograph. If for some reason we couldn’t get the photo, I’d scale it down to an unspecified level. Had to keep him on his toes because, although I now had a story to tell Lorraine Master, some physical evidence would make it a lot more convincing. I gave some thought to the possibility that this could be a set-up. The Kiwi woman could be holding a photograph of no one in particular who matched the description Montefiore had given me. Easy money. But it seemed unlikely that anyone could’ve anticipated me and my offer.

  I went to the bank to draw more money and bought a few things for Montefiore on the way back—a shirt, shampoo, deodorant, shaving tackle and such; a six pack of the local beer, milk, fruit, bread and cheese. When I returned he’d made an effort to clean up the flat. The rubbish was in plastic bags stacked outside and the floor had been swept. If I’d bought fly spray the place would’ve been almost habitable.

  The big surprise was that Montefiore had taken the cast off and was massaging his leg, flexing his toes and going through a gentle rehab procedure. He seemed to know what he was doing and I was inclined to believe him about his martial arts prowess. He showered, washed his hair, shaved, put on his clean shirt, white jeans and sneakers and looked pale but capable of fending for himself.

  I showed him the money and he nodded. ‘You’re a fucking life-saver.’

  ‘I was, once.’

  We had a beer and ate some of the food and tried to get on level terms. Not easy. We were wary of each other and both suspicious by nature.

  ‘You didn’t ask for cigarettes,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t smoke, except the odd joint.’

  I sniffed the air.

  ‘Fay smokes. I can’t stand the bloody things, but what can you do?’

  He went out of the room again and I heard a few drawers open and close. When he came back he had a light blue linen jacket over his arm and was carrying a fair-sized overnight bag. ‘Might have to move quick,’ he said.

  ‘What about the rent?’

  ‘Fuck it.’

  Just to make conversation, I said, ‘You mentioned the plan to drop a small amount of heroin on Master. Turned out to be a couple of kilos and he went for ten minimum.’

  Montefiore drained his can. ‘No fridge,’ he said. ‘We either drink ’em or I put ’em in cold water in the sink.’

  ‘I could go another one. It’s pretty light. Keep two in hand. What d’you reckon about the drugs?’

  We took cans from the pack and he went out to the kitchen and ran water. ‘How could you trust those bastards?’ he said when he came back. ‘They double-cross everyone on principle.’

  I cracked the second can and thought about it. ‘How well did you know Master?’

  He opened the can and put it aside. ‘One’s enough for now. I’m still thinking about getting a few head shots on Sione. Stewie? I’d never met him before. Gabe introduced him. I dunno. He’d clearly been around a bit. Couple of tatts that looked like gaol jobs, I noticed. Pretty quiet. Young looking, but I wouldn’t have liked to mess with him. Seemed like he had something on his mind. Why?’

  ‘Just something you said. I wonder if he was letting himself be set up for the drug bust. Say a minor one, for some reason, and they double-crossed him like you say.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. Look, I’m going to take a nap. About four we can go to the place where Fay’s working. They’ll be rehearsing and we can talk to her about all this. You’ve got a car?’

  ‘Yeah. Okay. Suppose this all goes well and I get the photo and you and Fay get the money, how would you get out? I’ve got the feeling Rivages could . . . intercept you.’

  Montefiore stretched and yawned, obviously enjoying being free of the sling and cast. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe on Reg’s yacht.’

  ‘All the way to Australia?’

  ‘Nah. Vanuatu maybe. Money talks there, they tell me.’

  Jarrod Montefiore was bouncing back, I judged—a player again.

  We drove to the Salon de Fun. It was on the ground floor of a building that housed a restaurant on the first level and apartments above that. It wasn’t far from the Île de France and the racetrack. Late afternoon shadows and overgrown bushes all but concealed the pathway to the joint, which looked as if it had once seen better days. The large windows were stained and mottled and a poor attempt had been made to blot out an old insignia and replace it with the new name. The old one still showed through and the replacement was amateurishly done. We stopped before reaching the doorway.

  ‘Give me some money,’ Montefiore said.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘As many ones as you can dig up.’

  I fumbled among the cash in my pockets and couldn’t help patting the money belt around my middle where I kept the serious stuff. I located seven or eight one thousand franc notes and handed them over. ‘Comes off the top,’ I said.

  He grinned. ‘Cheap bastard.’ He was enjoying himself more by the minute.

  The man standing by the door had a boxer’s nose and a boozer’s build. Montefiore spoke to him in rapid French, handed over a few notes and we were waved in. Inside, the place wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. The floor was clean and the tables and chairs looked as if they got a regular wipe. The lighting wasn’t bad and the stage wasn’t the beer and sweat stained mess I’d seen in other strip joints. There were some of the standard props—the crotch pole, the tigerskin rug, the swing, the backboard with the manacles—all in reasonable condition. But no girls.

  Montefiore walked across to the bar where a woman in a see-through blouse was wiping glasses. More fast French. She looked at her watch. ‘Un moment,’ she said and I understood that. Montefiore bought two beers and gave her a tip, something that wasn’t usual in Noumea. She said something I couldn’t catch but the name Fay was part of it.

  The lights dimmed and the Kiwi Kuties trouped onto the stage. Unusual, I thought. One by one, getting hotter as they come on deck is the standard thing. We were standing well back from the lit-up stage and if the performers could see us they made no sign. Stripper music started blaring out and I saw right off that this was something different. The three women were all tall, leggy blondes with light tans. They wore satin blouses and loose silk trousers with very high heels. Red, white and blue with the odd star and stripe. As the music got going they began to gyrate, all keeping good time with some intricate steps, and to strip each other. They weaved around the stage, well choreographed, undoing buttons, sliding blouses off shoulders, letting silk pants whisper half down and toying with g-string ties and the fastenings of front-opening bras.

  Suddenly, with an abrupt change in the r
hythm of the music, this all changed and the performers went into their own routines, although they only mimed the actions so far—all that was needed, I supposed, in rehearsal.

  ‘Good, aren’t they?’ Montefiore said and I fancied he was struggling to hold his heavy breathing in check.

  ‘They are.’

  ‘The one on the end’s a bloke.’

  ‘Which end?’

  Montefiore snorted. ‘Yeah, you’d never tell. Fay’s in the middle. She’s the best of them in my book.’

  Fay certainly had all the attributes for the job and she seemed to be enjoying it. Montefiore moved forward into a patch of light and she stopped dead in the middle of a slither when she saw him.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jay.’

  ‘Hi, babe.’

  ‘What is this?’ one of the others complained.

  ‘I’m taking five.’ Fay jumped down from the stage, landing with perfect balance on her high heels, and ran into Montefiore’s waiting arms.

  They hugged and kissed for a minute or two and then Montefiore introduced me. Dropping his voice, he said, ‘He’s got our ticket out of here—twenty-five grand. Right, Cliff?’

  What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her until it wouldn’t hurt me. I nodded and she gave me a hard look. ‘For what?’

  ‘Remember that creep who was hanging around and you got a snap of him?’

  A yell came from the stage. ‘Hey, Faysie, are we gonna do this or what?’

  ‘Keep your gaff on, Rox. I’ll be there in a minute. That much for the photo?’

  ‘And information. You’ve still got it, haven’t you? I told you it was insurance.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Think! Jesus!’

  ‘Don’t fuckun’ come uht wuth me, Jay.’ Her accent thickened with anger. ‘You got into this mess all on your own.’

  ‘Twenty-five grand and out of this shithole,’ Montefiore said. ‘Sandy beaches and beer at three bucks a pop. A chance at some real money.’

  ‘Yeah, with you pumping me.’

  ‘C’mon, babe.’

  Montefiore was good. He had that quality a lot of women like, the quality that presumably attracted Lorraine to Stewart Master. Glen Withers, who’d shared the taste, told me about it once after we’d watched a video of Chinatown. Nicholson had it, she said, a bad twinkle in the eye.