Saving Billie

I thought briefly about an idea that had come to me. Tommy had an attitude and some bad habits but he looked strong and he was enterprising. He'd talked about wanting to work. I figured he was worth a chance, especially as he could be useful. 'What if I said I could get you a job here?'

'Doin' what?'

'Gardening, A month's work for sure. Maybe some painting after that.'

'Sounds good. Where?'

'Lilyfield. Friend of mine's bought a rundown house there. Big garden completely overgrown. It needs clearing and straightening up. Then the joint needs painting and repairs. You could doss there while you worked.'

For all his street-wise toughness there was suddenly a bit of vulnerability about him. The thought of having somewhere to live, a real job to do, a place in the scheme of things, seemed to change him from a passenger to something more positive.

'You dinkum?'

'Yes. Course if you fucked up…'

His cigarette had burned out and he hadn't lit another. His beer was getting warm. 'I won't. What was it you wanted to know?'

'Let's get this fixed up first.'

Mike D'Angelo, who operates a bottle shop in King Street, is a friend. He'd bought the Lilyfield tumbledown and intended to live there, but with three shops to care for he hadn't the time to clear the block-round about a third of an acre. He'd asked me if I knew a reliable handyman. I bought Tommy a new pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt and he tidied himself up in the little bathroom in my building. I took him to meet Mike and they got along well. Mike handed Tommy the keys to an old ute he had parked behind his shop.

'You'll have to dump lots of loads. Keys to the house and a couple of sheds are on the ring.'

'Right,' Tommy said.

Mike handed over forty dollars. 'Two fifty a week. This comes out of it. You'll need boots and gloves. There's some tools in the ute. Power's on and the phone's connected, I think.'

'Right… thanks.'

'I'll show him the place,' I said.

'Watch out for snakes.'

'My totem, man.'

Mike laughed. 'Bullshit.'

'Right,' Tommy said.

We bought work boots and gloves in a disposal store and I drove to the Lilyfield place with Tommy following in the ute. It was a corner block near a park and every weed and noxious growth in the area, native and introduced, had invaded and taken hold. The land was choked with lantana and bougainvillea and wisteria and others I couldn't identify. Tommy took a look and sucked in a breath.

'Whew, big job.'

'You up to it?'

'You bet.'

'He's paying you two fifty a week and free rent. You're looking at a couple of grand easy.'

'I'm grateful, man. Best thing that's happened to me in a long time.'

'Good. Mike runs a pretty big operation-he's got a couple of shops and he's got interests in other businesses. Play your cards right and you could have a career with him.'

Tommy nodded.

'Let's have our talk and I'll leave you to it.'

Tommy Larrigo told me, in his own words, that there was ongoing tension between the Island Brotherhood and the Children of Christ and those attached to both organisations. Now that he was out of the area, he felt free to say that the Brotherhood, while providing some community services, also had a dark side-assisting the Department of Housing and real estate agents in evictions and taking bribes to stave off evictions. As Rudi Szabo had said, there was an insurance scam industry in Liston and adjoining suburbs and it had to be controlled by someone. He'd assumed Steve Kooti was somehow connected with it, but Tommy assured me that the criminal element in the island community was a worry to his uncle, who'd had more than one confrontation over it with John Manuma and others.

I helped Tommy unload the tools from the ute and unlocked the house and the sheds where there were more tools, rusty and cobwebbed but useable. His enthusiasm mounted with each discovery. The power was on in the house but the phone wasn't connected. I gave him my mobile and asked him to call his uncle and arrange a meeting between him and me.

Tommy laid it on thick-how I'd got him this great job with prospects and what a good guy I was and how he wouldn't be hanging around Liston with his arse out of his pants anymore.

After a few exchanges, some of them in Maori, Tommy shut off the phone and handed it back. 'Says he'll meet you at the Campbelltown TAFE-Narellan Road. He's doing some sort of course there. Says he'll know you. This arvo, two o'clock.'

'Okay,' I said, 'start slashing.'

As I'd told Sharon Marchant, in this game you never know where you're going to be or for how long. I went home, collected the. 38 and packed a few clothes and bits and pieces. I tanked up and was on the road south-west again with plenty of time to meet Kooti, racking up the kilometres and petrol receipts against an as yet still unpaid retainer. I'd heard of Kooti over the years from various people but as far as I knew I'd never met him. Still, if he said he'd know me I guessed he would. My plan was simple-to see if I could persuade him to help me detach Billie Marchant from the Island Brotherhood. If I had to put up with some Bible-bashing to achieve that, I would.

Kooti wasn't hard to spot. At about 200 centimetres and a hundred plus kilos, he stood out like a bishop on a beach. He wore a polo shirt with the arm bands stretched to breaking point by his biceps, and baggy shorts that showed the kind of legs that had made him virtually impossible to knock down on a football field. Massive head, a metre of shoulder breadth. I parked and approached him, noting the backpack and book in his hand.

'Mr Hardy,' he said. 'Good to meet you.'

My hand got briefly swallowed up by his. 'Mr Kooti, thanks for agreeing to see me.'

'Good reasons. C'mon over here and sit down. There's a scrap of shade.'

We walked across to where a straggly tree threw some shade over a park bench. He stuffed the book into his backpack; I caught the word 'faith' in the title.

'Tommy said you'd know me, and you did. Can't see how.'

'Ah, doubting Thomas. I'm grateful for what you're doing for him. He's not a bad kid, but wasting his life like so many of them. Maybe you've helped him onto a new path. Yes, I know you. I was there in the Rockdale Arms when you hauled Ricky Clitheroe out of harm's way. I asked who you were later.'

I shrugged. 'He was a lightweight, junior welter at most. All the rest were heavies.'

'I was one of them.' He extended his arms and I could see pale scars crossing the dark skin of his forearms. 'One of the brawlers. I got badly cut up.'

'When you were working for Rudi Szabo?'

'Yes.' He looked at the cheap watch on his wrist just below the scars. 'I've got a class soon. What do you want from me? You know that I'm a servant of the Lord now. I don't do violence.'

I outlined my problem to him, stressing that Billie Marchant needed proper medical care, but not concealing the fact that I had a particular agenda quite apart from her welfare. There was no point in dissembling. Steve Kooti was an impressive piece of work-calm, intelligent, confident. He had the kind of composed inner strength I'd seen in some soldiers, some boxers, some cops and an occasional criminal. You can't bullshit them.

He heard me out. 'John Manuma is a… let us say, conflicted man. There is much good about him. He's a genuine Christian, I believe, but his power and influence can send him in wrong directions at times.'

'Do you have any influence with him?'

'No, not of the kind you require. Are you sure this woman is not receiving proper care? The power of prayer and faith are enormous.'

'Her sister says not. She also fears for the boy, her nephew, falling under the influence of this Yoli.'

'Yolande Potare. Yes, he's a different thing altogether. A criminal. I might be able to help you. Have to think about it, and take counsel with others. Where will you be this evening?'

'Wherever you want me to be.'