Thursday night and busy. I followed the car back to North Sydney. May Ling cruised, looking for a parking spot, and found one. I had to park illegally to keep in touch. I'd get a ticket, but I was on expenses. Or was I? I didn't have a raincoat and I got wet following the pair along the street with only occasional cover from the awnings. The man kept his hood up. They walked close together but didn't touch. They entered a Chinese restaurant doing a roaring trade, but they must have made a booking because they were seated straight off.
'Sir?'
The head waiter looked sceptically at my jeans, windcheater and damp leather jacket.
'Can I wait at the bar for a free table?'
'Are you alone, sir?'
When I hear that I always want to come out with the Jake Gittes line: 'Aren't we all?' but I restrained myself. I said I had a friend coming.
'There could be a table for two in about thirty minutes. By all means wait in the bar.'
'Pencil me in,' I said.
He smiled, unamused.
I sat at the bar and ordered a glass of the house red. It cost ten dollars and the woman behind the bar poured it precisely so that you couldn't complain that it was too little, but certainly couldn't feel that it was generous. I had a clear view now of May Ling and her companion, who was definitely Standish but not the man I'd been with two days ago. He appeared pale and as if he'd lost weight. He had what looked like a double whisky in front of him and he was working on it as if it was his last drink in this life. May Ling slipped her jacket off in the warm room. Her pale neck was swanlike; her breasts suggested picture-perfection under her silk blouse. She had her hand on Standish's arm with the slender fingers moving gently but it wasn't doing him any good. The man was clearly close to his emotional limit.
After a while, say two-thirds of my glass of wine, Standish and May Ling were joined by two Chinese men. Both were medium-size, well dressed and known to the head waiter, who almost bowed to the floor on greeting them. Two chairs were quickly pulled out to allow them to sit down with a minimum of effort. They accepted all this as their right. They would.
I knew both of the men and the face of one had been in the newspapers and on television. The older of the two, the one with grey in his hair, was Freddy Wong. Freddy had avoided gaol for more than twenty years. He'd been acquitted several times-of drug importation, home invasion and conspiracy to commit murder, twice. The other man was his brother. No wonder Standish looked stressed.
I'd come up against Freddy Wong about ten years earlier when helping a Chinese family rescue a girl from a brothel he'd controlled. It was the classical thing-an offer of domestic employment, the arrangement of a visa and then the trap closed. But Wong or his agent had miscalculated. The girl had family in Sydney, including a police officer. They hired me and I worked with the cop to get the girl and several other women away and recover their passports. It had involved a violent confrontation between me and Wong's lieutenant-his brother. Threats were issued but nothing came of it.
Standish's involvement with the Wong brothers put a whole new spin on things. Added to that, Freddy Wong was one of the gamblers Malouf was said to have lost money to.
7
The Wongs had their backs to me but I still kept my head low and a hand up to my face. I searched my memory for Freddy's brother's name without a result. I remembered his snarling aggression and the fight we'd had in a lane behind the brothel in Petersham. It wasn't a martial arts affair, nothing balletic, just a knock-down, drag-out fist fight. He was fast and strong but he didn't have the timing and technique you need for that sort of stoush. We fought at close quarters, between two garbage skips, and there was no space for bullocking rushes, which would have been his preferred style. He swung a lot and missed a lot. A straight punch beats a swing most times, cumulatively. I wore him down and left him dazed and bleeding in the gutter.
Lester, that was it. It was all coming back to me. The Wong brothers weren't refugees or asylum seekers. The family had been here since the gold rushes, and members had prospered as merchants and professionals-but they'd formed links with the criminal element in the more recent arrivals and had their fingers in all the pies. Freddy had been to Fort Street High School and Sydney University for a medical degree. He'd never worked as a doctor. Lester had never worked at anything except as Freddy's muscle. The two men bore no physical resemblance: Freddy was squat and fat, verging on obese; Lester was medium tall and lean. He'd been a speed addict and his couple of brief gaol terms-for assault and wounding-were unlikely to have rehabilitated or detoxified him.
Things weren't going well at the table. Freddy Wong was shaking his head emphatically while Lester tucked in to the food. Then a man who fitted the generic description 'of Middle Eastern appearance' joined them and the discussion got heated. May Ling looked anxious as she tried to soothe all the players. Standish had completely lost his appetite.
It wasn't the time to intrude, especially in those surroundings where the Wongs were likely to have useful supporters. I finished my drink and moved away from the bar.
'Sir,' the head waiter said, 'a table is being cleared for you.'
'I've been stood up.'
'What a shame. Perhaps you'll come again.'
I drove home thinking that the evening hadn't been a complete waste of time; it had thrown up a lot of questions.
What exactly was the relationship between Standish and May Ling? Why had he dropped out of sight, and what was he doing playing chopsticks with the Wong brothers? May Ling had to be the go-between, but what kind of deal was she brokering? And what of the Middle Eastern wild card?
I called in on Megan and Hank and ate their leftover shepherd's pie. They were still feeling the glow of approaching parenthood and I didn't want to dim it by talking about my concerns. Hank said his parents would be coming out for the birth. Megan's mother, my ex-wife Cyn, was dead. The kid would be down one grandparent and it'd be up to me to do a good job in the solo role.
'Have you ever actually held a baby in your arms, Cliff?' Megan asked.
'Sure, my sister's kids.'
'Boys or girls?' 'Um…'
Hank laughed. 'We've all gotta lot to learn. What're you doing with yourself, Cliff?'
I hadn't told them about my financial reverses. 'Managing my financial affairs,' I said, which was true in a way.
I left them still happy, and some of that rubbed off on me as it had before and as I hoped it would again. As I drove home I had to search my memory again for the name of the Chinese policeman I'd worked with on the matter of Freddy Wong's sex slaves. It didn't come to me until I was half asleep after five pages of a recent Miles Franklin Award-winning novel I'd bought as a remainder-Stephen Chang.
Frank Parker was a long-time friend who'd retired as a deputy police commissioner but remained on their books as a consultant. He had access to police databases closed to civilians. With the previous night's damp clothes in the dryer, I rang him early, knowing that he'd soon be off cycling or playing squash or swimming laps. I'd put on some weight recently, and Frank's trim figure was a constant reproach.
'Frank, it's Cliff.'
'Gidday, Cliff, feel like a swim?'
'Ask me round about December. No, I need some help locating a member of the New South Wales police service.'
'Oh, Jesus, you're not working, are you? You've got no standing, mate, no protection. One bad move and they'll chop you off at the knees. You know that.'