I ate at Donelli’s in Smith Street, Collingwood, whenever possible because I could write on the bill: To be deducted from legal costs owing to the undersigned. Then I signed and wrote in capitals, JOHN IRISH, BARRISTER & SOLICITOR.
The great man himself, Patrick Donelly, an Italian trapped in the body, the corpulent body, of an Irishman, brought the menus. His eyes lit up when he saw my guest.
‘Good evenin to you, Mr Greer,’ he said. ‘Twice in a week, Irish. That outrageous bill of yours will be meltin away like the snows of Friuli in the springtime.’
‘Oh, the snow’s still thick and crisp and even in this frosty corner of Friuli, Donelly. Spring is some time away. What’s the special?’
‘In your fortunate position, Irish, I’d be havin the risotto moulds with tomato and red pepper sauce, followed by the lamb shanks, simmerin away since the early afternoon.’
‘So be it. Two glasses of the Albrissi, please. And a compatible red of your choosing, maestro.’
When Patrick had swept off, Andrew Greer eased his long body down in the chair, said, ‘Offhand, how much older would you expect Tony Ulasewicz to get?’
‘Actuarial tables may not be a good guide here.’
‘No. What makes the prick think it’s better to owe Brendan a hundred and sixty grand than the Armits?’
‘Armits weren’t planning to kill him. Not soon, anyway.’
‘I can follow that reasoning. How’s Linda?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘That bad?’ The long face didn’t convey any sympathy.
A small explosion of happy sounds. Donelly had come out of the kitchen to greet a mixed group of six. He said things in Irish-Italian and put his big pink hands on some of them. The anointed shivered with delight, touched his arms, huge starched white linen sausages.
‘Rosa says Linda’s been seen to be kissed on the ear by Rod Pringle,’ I said.
The glasses of white arrived. Drew took a tentative sip, screwed up his eyes, nodded approvingly. ‘Surprised Donelly doesn’t try to poison you,’ he said. ‘The ear. That’s bad. The mouth is better than the ear. Your aunt can kiss you on the mouth.’
‘Also she hasn’t been back in six weeks. Urgent weekend work.’
‘You could go up.’
‘Urgent out-of-town work.’
Drew had another sip, sighed. ‘Well, if I was a sheila, I’d cover your hand with mine and pull that sympathetic face.’
‘Fuck off.’
Drew looked thoughtful. ‘Bren O’Grady owes you,’ he said. ‘Bet he doesn’t even watch Rod Pringle. Wouldn’t mind if there was no Rod Pringle. See my drift?’
I drank half my glass. ‘This is marvellously helpful, Andrew. You could advertise this advice service in the Law Institute Journal.’
‘Just trying to cheer you up. I remember how you picked me up when Helen fucked off. Two handicap and a twelve-inch dick, I think you said the bastard had. Certainly wasn’t the other way round.’
‘Sometimes it helps to put a number on things,’ I said. ‘Listen, discussion of personal inadequacies aside for the moment, I’m trying to help an old bloke who worked with my dad.’
I told him the story.
‘Why doesn’t Des report Gary missing?’
‘At present, he’s not missing, he’s just not home. The old bloke doesn’t see him from year to year. Gary may do this kind of thing all the time.’
The first course arrived, followed shortly by a tall wine waiter with a swimmer’s build. She pulled the cork expertly, put it in a silver bowl for inspection, poured half a glass for judgment. I passed the vessel under my nose and nodded. She filled us up. We ate.
‘You wouldn’t swap sex for this risotto,’ Drew said, ‘although it would be a close-run thing.’ He wiped his mouth with a starched napkin. ‘But you don’t think Gary’s popped down the corner for smokes.’
‘No. Too many funny signs.’ I listed them.
Drew took a mouthful, savoured it, studied the ceiling. ‘For a lawyer,’ he said, ‘you’ve acquired some unusual powers of observation.’
‘There’s more.’ I told him about Gary being followed by a man, Gary meeting Jellicoe, Jellicoe’s murder.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘How do you manage to get involved in this kind of shit? What does Gary do for a quid? Apart from borrowing it?’
‘According to his tax return, he’s a security consultant.’
‘His tax return. You’ve seen his tax return?’
‘Yes.’
‘At the flat?’
‘No.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Forget the question.’
‘I’ve had someone look at his clients. Private companies overseas, about a dozen of them. Companies owned by other companies. Registered in one place, owners registered somewhere else-Cook Islands, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, British Virgin Islands. Andorra.’
I took out the two-page report from Simone Bendsten and passed it over. The waiter took our plates away.
‘Nice names,’ Drew said. ‘Klostermann Gardier, Viscacha Ltd, Scazon, Proconsul No 1. Some kind of tax dodge?’
‘Not by Gary. Declared an income of $345,000, paid tax on about $185,000. The tax people audited him, okayed all his deductions. Mostly business travel expenses, documented by American Express statements.’
‘So?’
‘Gary was a cop for five years. Drummed out, his ex-wife says. On the take. Then it’s a job in security for TransQuik. Cop fallback position, generally not the beginning of a glittering career. Wrong. Last year, he declares three hundred and fifty grand as a global security adviser. And there’s still a TransQuik connection. Worth $55,000.’
Drew read on, came to Simone’s link-up of Aviation SF with Fincham Air and the director of TransQuik.
‘Connection?’ he said. ‘The term tenuous was invented for describing connections like this.’
‘I rang TransQuik. Four people say, sorry, never heard of Gary Connors. Then a man calls from Sydney, says all the company knows about Gary Connors is that he worked for them as a security officer and left of his own volition a long time ago.’
‘Yes?’
‘I took a chance. I asked how come an associated company was paying Gary large sums of money. Man said he didn’t know what I was talking about. End of conversation.’
Drew was wearing his watchful courtroom expression.
‘But not for long,’ I said. ‘An hour later, I get a call from a lawyer with Apsley Kerr Woodward in Sydney. She says she is instructed to tell me that TransQuik has no connection with Gary Connors or with Aviation SF.’
Drew raised his eyebrows.
‘I never mentioned Aviation SF. Somebody at TransQuik knows Aviation SF paid Gary.’
‘Ah,’ said Drew. ‘Well, maybe a little thicker than tenuous. But still. You want to walk carefully with TransQuik. Big end of town. All the towns. I take it you saw Linda tangling with Mr Steven Levesque the other night?’
Steven Levesque. The handsome man with the wayward hair and the genuine laugh. I nodded. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’
Drew sighed, shook his head. ‘Levesque is TransQuik. Was, anyway. Levesque and the Killer Bees. Carson and Rupert and McColl. You should talk to my mate Tony Rinaldi. Remember Rinaldi? The fat bloke who used to sing?’
‘Yes. Quit the DPP’s office last year.’
‘Well, you don’t miss everything.’
‘Only the important things. How is it that you miss nothing?’
‘Nice little drop this,’ Drew said, examining the label. ‘Barone Ricasoli. A red baron. I miss nothing because I’m a citizen of the world, playing a full part in civic life. You, on the other hand, allow the affairs of the public sphere to pass you by while you master pigeonhole joints.’
‘Dovetail. Tricky things.’
The main course arrived: dark meat falling off the bone, pool of glistening dark sauce, sweet potato with flecks of something, baby green beans, crunchy.
We didn’t talk for a while. Finally, Drew said, ‘Jesus, how can I get Donelly to owe me money, lots of money? Are these bits of apricot?’
‘Stick around, make yourself known, your turn will come. Sooner or later, he’ll be up for pinning a kitchenhand to the wall with a knife.’
The bottle was low. I signalled to the swimmer for another. ‘So Tony Rinaldi knows about TransQuik?’
‘Oh yes. More than he should, I reckon. I had a few glasses with Anthony one night, his wife went off with a librarian from Camberwell library. Female librarian. That hurt the boy. Bloody Eltham artist is one thing, big dick notwithstanding. At least he had a dick.’
We went back to savouring the shanks. The new bottle arrived. I waived the approval ritual, went directly to Go.
‘A bitter man, Tony Rinaldi,’ said Drew. ‘First the wife’s knee-trembling in the library stacks, then he gets shafted in the DPP’s office. He reckons the DPP’s a silent partner in this new place, The Dining Room. Top of Collins Street. Know it?’
I shook my head. I’d been too dazed by encountering Linda’s perfume to notice much when I was last at the top of Collins Street.
‘Like eating at the Melbourne Club, I gather. Only with decent food and Jewish members. Victorian grandeur, my client Simeon Haldane, Melbourne Grammar and Cambridge, tells me. That’s Simon with an e stuck in. You went to Grammar, you’d probably know Simeon. About your vintage. Same dissolute appearance.’
‘Charged with what?’
‘Usual. Male minors, all orifices, possessing a range of educative pictorial stuff. Bit of light caning.’
‘Sounds like an ordinary day at boarding school.’
‘Simeon sat two tables away from the Premier at lunch at The Dining Room last week. The leader eats there all the time, takes the visiting money for dinner. Stuff themselves on prime Victorian meat. That’s all Simeon wanted to do really.’
We breasted the tape together, put the implements down on plates naked save the bones.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Simeon doesn’t stand out in my mind. Could be any one of fifty people from school. Why did Rinaldi get the boot from the DPP?’
Drew was looking at his empty plate in sorrow. ‘Not clear to me. Something to do with the Levesque gang. Tony was moving the flamethrower freely at that point, the wife, the librarian, the DPP, all blazing. Also, it was bottle three.’
I poured. ‘Want to go to the footy on Saturday?’
‘The footy? What, just pick a game? Any old footy?’
‘Saints and Geelong.’
‘Christ, what a pair. So, we’d be going for nobody, just like to see a game? Any old shitty game? That’s it?’
‘No. We’re going for the Saints.’
Drew emptied his glass of Barone Ricasoli’s 1986 Chianti Classico. ‘We? You and the Prince?’ Incredulous tone, loud. People looked at us.
‘Well, not the Prince as a whole.’
Drew glanced around, a what-the-fuck-are-you-looking-at glance. ‘The old buggers? You and the old buggers?’ Even louder, more incredulous.
‘Yes. Drew, steady, the other customers think we’re about to have a fight.’
He sighed, looked around again, apportioned the rest of the Ricasoli. ‘This is, well-you hear some strange things. I’ll be fucked.’
I couldn’t think of the right thing to say.
Drew sighed a few more times. ‘Jesus, Jack, are you all off your fucking heads? The Brisbane bloody Lions at least represent a bit of the old Roys. So they train in Brisbane. What the fuck does that matter? Everybody plays all over the place. Footy in fucking Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, wall-to-wall cankerous Poms at every game. Where the hell did Fitzroy end up training? Not in Fitzroy. Some players never came near Fitzroy except to front up to the faithful to raise a few bucks. Footy players are just mercenaries, can’t you grasp that? They’re not like your old man, his old man, however fucking many bloody Irish played for the Roys. These are just contract players. And that’s been going on a long time. Didn’t stop the team being Fitzroy, did it? Did it?’
‘So Saturday’s pretty much taken up then?’ I said.
‘Hang on. All we have to do is pretend that the Roys aren’t having many home games this season. When they play in Melbourne, they’re home. In Brisbane and Sydney and Adelaide and fucking Perth, they’re away. That’s not hard is it? Fewer home games. Get a grip on that and we’ve still got the Roys.’
A large woman at the next table said loudly, ‘Like bloody hell. Never heard such bullshit before.’
‘Settle down,’ said her companion. ‘You shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations.’
‘Well, he’s got a point,’ said one of the four youngish men at the table on the other side.
‘Point?’ said another of the men. ‘Are you out of your…’
‘Drew, this may be an opportune moment to leave. I can’t charge breakages incurred during an all-in brawl against Donelly’s bill.’
We went to the pub down the street for the cleansing ale, took taxis home. I was in bed trying to focus on the men and their father’s novel when the phone rang. It was Drew, serious.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘got home, poured a last little one, bit in a bottle going to waste, thought I’d give Tony Rinaldi a ring since he’d come to mind. Cheer him up, take his mind off librarians. Well, I remembered some of those company names, y’know? Your bloke.’
‘Yes.’
‘So I said to Tony, what’s the name Klostermann Gardier mean to you? Know what he says?’
‘No.’
‘He says, he’s had a few sherbets himself, he says, Where’d you hear that? That’s a name gets people killed.’