‘Moving again, Frank?’ I said. ‘You a Deputy Commissioner or something, now?’
He grinned at me and dusted his hands. ‘You’re behind the times, Cliff. You see me at the end of what looks like being my last day in the New South Wales Police Force.’
5
He filled me in at the pub-not the usual copper’s watering hole, but another a few blocks from the station. He made a point of this as we breasted the bar.
‘See, changing the patterns already.’
‘Yeah, I’m sorry about the promotion crack, Frank. Didn’t know anything like this was happening.’
‘No reason you should. They kept it all very dark.’
‘It?’
The beers came and we reached out at the same time. We moved over to a window seat, out of earshot of the other drinkers.
‘It’s simple enough’, Parker said. ‘I’m guilty of taking bribes. That’s what the internal investigation found, and the tribunal believed. I’m suspended-I’ll appeal, but it’ll be confirmed. I creamed off more than fifty grand over the past few years.’
‘Bullshit!’
He raised his glass. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, Cliff Hardy.’ He took a long pull on the middy.
‘What sort of bribes?’
‘All sorts. For impeding the course of justice, for passing information, for intimidating witnesses.’
I said ‘Bullshit’ again, which wasn’t much help to anyone.
‘You don’t have to tell me, mate. I’ve been lying awake over it for six weeks.’
‘What’re you supposed to have done with the money?’
‘There was a bookie who I placed a lot of bets with, apparently. Since gone on a long holiday-no one knows where. I bought a car and wrecked it-dealer no longer in business, it seems.’
I finished my beer and tried for a lighter note. ‘It just doesn’t sound like you, Frank. ‘Course, you never know.’
‘That’s right, but I’ll tell you this-when all this was supposed to be happening, I was too bloody tired to have a split personality.’
‘Set up?’
‘Right.’ He went over for another round. Frank is a fraction fuller than me; he used to be a little heavier but he wasn’t anymore. The waistband of his pants was crinkled where his belt had drawn it in a notch or two. He came back with the drinks and set them down.
‘I’d give the world for a smoke.’ His face under the blue beard-shadow had a hollow, eaten-out look.
‘Fight it’, I said. ‘Build your character. You must have some idea of why you got screwed.’
‘Yeah, well, to tell the truth, the problem is an over-supply of ideas. In this game what d’you make but enemies? Don’t get hurt, Cliff.’
‘I’ll try not to. Treading on toes internally, as it were?’
He grinned. ‘Jesus, you butcher the language. Yeah, every day. Impossible not to. Ah, I don’t know. It happens. I’m not the first.’
‘What’re you going to do? Take up drinking professionally?’
He looked at the glass in his hand. ‘No’, he said quietly. ‘I’ve hardly had a drink since it started. No one to drink with, much. Nola’s gone.’
He meant his wife of ten years. I’d only met her once-had no clear image. ‘That’s tough, Frank. I’m sorry. Was that connected with…?’
‘The screwing of Frank Parker? Not really. Shit, I was never there and dead tired when I was. There was no money to speak of, and no fun. She found someone who could give her a bit of both. Who could blame her? We both changed, and in different directions-I got harder, she got softer. Thank Christ we didn’t have any kids.’
‘You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do about it.’
‘I haven’t decided. Give me a chance. Let’s leave me for a bit.’ He took a drink and gave me one of his professional appraisals. ‘You need a haircut. You haven’t changed much since I last saw you. Why should you? You probably looked forty when you were twenty. You’re that sort.’
I made a fist. ‘I’ve changed inside, Frank.’
‘How are things-inside?’
I hadn’t thought hard about it. How were they? I had all my hair and most of my health. I was independent. I was reading Bartlett and Steele’s biography of Howard Hughes: I was better off than Hughes, but then, everyone in the bar was better off than Howard Hughes. I was all right.
‘I’m okay’, I said. ‘Working for a guy named Paul Guthrie, know him?’
Parker shook his head. ‘Must be a good clean job if you can tell me who you’re working for.’
‘I wouldn’t call it clean, not altogether.’
‘There’s no such thing as really clean in your game, or in mine.’ He drank and snorted. ‘Whatever that is now. Nola said it was a dirty game anyhow.’
‘What’s her new bloke do?’
‘Search me. Why did you come to see me? You’re working for fairly clean Mr Guthrie and…?’
‘His son’s run off the rails. Stepson really. He’s put himself out of touch with the family, dropped a girl you’d run to Melbourne for, and he’s keeping bad company.’
‘How bad?’
‘Liam Catchpole, Dottie Williams, Tiny Spotswood.’
‘That’s not good. That’s trouble.’
‘Yeah. Catchpole seems to have turned up about the time the kid went haywire. Last week he was looking for him again. The father’s been told his kid was on the piss with the three of them. You can guess what comes next, Frank?’
Parker scratched at his heavy beard; the noise was like amplified radio static. ‘I’d have to ask around a bit. That wouldn’t be too hard, there’s still people who owe me favours.’
‘I’d be grateful’, I said.
He wasn’t listening to me; he was off in the private world the persecuted build for themselves in the long, quiet nights and the slow, slow days.
‘Favours… favours. I can put pressure on people-bucket them if I want to. They’re afraid of me. Sometimes I think the whole bloody system runs on terror.’
‘Easy, Frank. I don’t want any terror. Just a line on Catchpole-who he’s fizzgigging for at the moment. What might be going on.’
‘Why don’t you front him?’
‘It might come to that. I’m just trying to be subtle first.’
‘Haven’t lost your nerve have you, Cliff?’
‘Come on, you know Liam and his sort better than I do. Thumping them does no bloody good. You make it worth their while if you can, or you find someone else who’ll tell you what they won’t. Thumping’s no good unless you’re prepared to go all the way. Liam would’ve got thumped in the cradle.’
‘You sound like a social worker.’
‘Just ask-will you?’
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks. Another beer.?’
‘No, don’t think so,’ He stretched his arms out in front of him and shook the imaginary bars of a cage. The old knife-scar showed dirty white on his black-haired forearm. ‘I reckon I’m glad you dropped by, Cliff.’
‘How’s that? Stimulating company, I know.’
‘I’m not going to lie down under this. I’m forty-three, I’ve been in the force for twenty years. I like the work. I’ve got a bloody investment in it. And they owe me.’
I nodded and let him talk.
‘I’m going to make a stink. That’s where you can help me. Tit for tat.’
‘Charmed. How?’
‘I’d like to have a session with your journo mate, Harry Tickener. I could tell him a thing or two.’
‘Jesus, Frank, don’t just jump into that. Think hard about it.’
‘Would Tickener be interested?’
‘He’d give an arm and a leg.’
We got up and left the pub. Parker pushed the door out and I followed him on to the street. It was early evening, still very warm and the traffic was light. People had got to where they wanted to be. Parker stepped off the kerb to anticipate a break in the thin stream of cars. As he did, a shout of ‘Hey, Frank!’ came from across the street. Parker’s head lifted to look for the shouter, but he kept moving forward. I was a step-and-a-half behind. A green Mazda with hooded headlights left the kerb ten metres away and roared towards Parker like a blinded, pouncing beast. I jumped, and clawed at Parker’s shoulder, digging my fingers in, twisting and pulling him back. We both stumbled and he fell back on top of me. I grazed my hand breaking the fall. The Mazda screamed past.