Gunshine State Page 20

  Chance explained where they were going and why as they pushed their way through Melbourne’s peak-hour congestion. He knew the only way to find the physical location of where an e-mail had been sent from was to hack into the internet server provider or get a court order for them to kick it loose. The best Issarapong had been able to manage was to pinpoint the street, a cul-de-sac in a new housing development not far from the city’s main airport.

  The cul-de-sac was lined with freestanding two-story houses separated by wooden fences, surrounded by a grassy field. It had probably been bushland once, now all that remained were a few gum trees. A 737 moved across the cotton wool sky as it came in to land at the nearby airport.

  ‘The Paris end of Roxburgh Park,’ muttered Walsh as he leaned on the steering wheel, peered through the windshield smudged and beaded with moisture. ‘I can feel the mortgage stress from here.’

  Four of the dwellings on the street were completed, the rest were in various stages of construction. Similar houses were going up across the field, Melbourne’s outer urban sprawl expanding in all directions.

  The two men sat in the warm vehicle at the mouth of the street, watched the houses for signs of life. Walsh spoke every now and again, updates about people they knew in common, what he was doing for work. He still bounced now and again, supplemented it with construction jobs. The construction industry suited him, the often paper-thin line between legality and criminality. You were either in the union or organised crime, or sometimes both. Just like being back in Ireland. Chance responded with one- or two-word answers, his attention on the houses. Walsh drained his polystyrene cup of coffee, dropped it on the floor at his feet.

  ‘Doesn’t make sense, your man Dormer living in one of these. Man doesn’t steal several million in drugs and cash, live out here.’

  Walsh was right. A white prefabricated two-story house, red-tiled roofs, hot off the plan, in the middle of Melbourne’s outer suburban fringe, didn’t feel like the kind of place Dormer would hole up in.

  Then again, what Chance knew about Dormer would have fitted on the back of a postage stamp with space to spare. Ex-Australian Army, had worked in Afghanistan as a private security contractor. Chance had come across them during his time in the country, bullet-headed men with dark sunglasses, balaclava-obscured faces and secretive demeanours. They rode shotgun on supply convoys, stood at roadblocks, shot first, and asked questions later, if at all.

  One thing Chance did know, Dormer was a professional, good at throwing out distractions and misinformation. Like the little horror film of Long, which he’d launched anonymously into cyber space to create maximum chaos and paranoia.

  Chance felt a pang of anxiety. He’d come all this way to sit in the middle of nowhere on the say so of a Thai gangster with a pit full of snakes for a mind, who, for all he knew, was already dead, stripped to the bone by the former underlings who’d risen against him. Chance pushed these thoughts aside. Concentrated on the task ahead.

  Over the next hour they watched people depart from two of the four completed dwellings, a man in a business suit, a backpack on his shoulder, and a harassed-looking woman and two young kids, driving away from each other.

  That left two remaining houses.

  ‘Fuck this for a joke,’ said Walsh. He got out of the car, made his way along the footpath around one side of the cul-de-sac, put on a pair of surgical gloves as he walked, disappeared around the back of one of the houses no one had yet come out of. He returned ten minutes later, got back in the car.

  ‘One hasn’t been occupied yet, the other has been lived in but no one’s home.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We can sit around here while I try and explain it or you can have a look for yourself, Gary. Two men sitting in a car, we stick out like a pimple on a newborn baby’s bottom. Won’t be long before the peelers are round to check us out, then what? Either we call it quits or we check out this house now. What’s it going to be?’

  A few bits of basic furniture, bare walls, empty fridge, bare cupboards, bare everything. Chance flicked a light switch on the kitchen wall. The power was on, which meant someone was still paying the bills.

  In a small room off the main living area there was a futon base and folded mattress. Next to it was a cheap computer desk, a power point on the skirting board nearby, but no computer.

  Walsh appeared in the doorway. ‘Found something you might want to take a look at.’

  He followed the Irishman through the kitchen, into an adjoining laundry area, where a door led to a large windowless carport. Chance sniffed, a faint smell he couldn’t identify, halfway between chemicals and cat piss. He looked around, realised it was coming from a large, blue plastic forty-five-gallon drum in a corner. Cardboard boxes and empty white plastic containers were stacked next to it. The drum was tightly sealed with a black lid. Chance kicked it. It was full.

  Chance picked up one of the white containers. ‘Certified lye,’ he read from the label. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An alkaline solution used for cleaning,’ said Walsh, grim-faced. ‘Me ma used to use it to clean the drains back home. It has other uses.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It’s also good for dissolving bodies.’

  ‘You’re saying there’s a body in there.’ Chance said the words slowly.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Should we have a look?’

  ‘Nothing to look at, comrade.’

  Chance raised his eyebrows, urged him to continue.

  ‘Mixed with water, lye will liquefy a body in a few hours and God knows how long this baby’s been brewing. All that would be left is a brown liquid the consistency of mineral oil, maybe a few bone fragments.’

  Walsh’s voice was monotone, like he was reciting a textbook. ‘Acid is better, it’ll get rid of everything, bones, teeth, the lot, but it’s also more dangerous to handle and sales of strong acids are more tightly monitored because they can be used for bomb-making. But lye is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the world. You can purchase enough to dissolve an adult body from any farm supply store.’

  Chance left Walsh to do one more sweep of the house, went outside, looked around the back yard, a square of unkempt lawn, big enough to build another house on. Against the back fence sat another forty-five-gallon drum, this one metal, the exterior covered in orange rust. It had been used as an incinerator.

  Chance waded through knee high grass, peered into the drum, nothing but sodden ash. He rolled a cigarette, drew the smoke in deep, hoping to banish the chemical smell that clung to him from the garage.

  He noticed a black and white shape in the moist weeds at the base of the barrel, picked it up. A tag of some sort. He swiped his thumb across the black plastic to remove the grime, saw the name “Sophia” in stylish gold letters.

  The identification tag from the hotel she’d worked at in Surfers Paradise, where Gao had stayed.

  If there was a body in the plastic barrel in the garage, he had a strong suspicion whose it was.

  THREE

  ‘Charming playmates you’ve got, comrade,’ said Walsh after Chance had explained his suspicions.

  ‘This coming from a man who just gave me a lecture on how to dispose of a corpse.’

  ‘Me?’ Walsh shrugged. ‘I’m just a sensitive New Age guy, knowledgeable about my cleaning products.’

  ‘Did you check the mailbox?’

  ‘Aye, rubbish, fliers for fast food, local tradies, an offer of a gym membership, all addressed to the occupant.’

  Chance exhaled. ‘Which means we’re right back where we started.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I had a look in the cardboard boxes in the shed, like you asked.’

  ‘And?’

  Walsh waited until they’d stopped at a red light, reached into the fold of his hoodie, passed something to his passenger. ‘I found this.’

  A business card, the name Touch of the Orient and a Western suburbs
address—both in flowery pink letters on a glossy black matt background—a badly Photo-shopped image of a woman’s arse and lower back.

  Chance turned the card over, nothing. ‘The business card for a brothel, so what?’

  ‘There was an entire box of them.’

  ‘Really?’

  Walsh nodded, a grin plastered across his broad face. ‘It’s okay, Gary, don’t fall all over yourself to thank me.’

  Chance ignored him, looked at the card with renewed interest. ‘You ever heard of this place?’

  The mid-morning traffic was heavier as they approached the city. Walsh braked, came to a stop in front of a large semi-trailer. ‘Do you know how many brothels there are in Melbourne?’

  ‘Not counting all the illegal and fly-by-night joints?’ Chance looked out the passenger’s window, large furniture showrooms, hardware and office supplies shops as far as the eye could see. ‘No idea, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say Dormer is connected to the one we accidently stumbled across, yeah?’

  ‘Normally, I say so,’ said Walsh. ‘But finding a cardboard box full of business cards in the same space as a barrel with a decomposed corpse, that’s more than a coincidence, wouldn’t you say, comrade?’

  ‘Indeed I would, mate. Indeed I would.’ Chance tapped the card on the dashboard. ‘Fancy a trip to the Western suburbs?’

  The address on the card was an abandoned two-story terrace house. Westgate Bridge, the link between the city and Melbourne’s vast western suburbs, curved across the sky behind it in the distance, a concrete and metal rainbow in the clouds.

  The terrace was painted pink, a faded sign, Touch of the Orient, also in pink, affixed to the front and another sign warning trespassers away. The windows were boarded up. To one side was a small car park. Weeds spouted from the cracked concrete.

  Chance leaned against the cyclone wire fence surrounding the abandoned property, curled his fingers around the rings in frustration.

  ‘Looks like business wasn’t so good,’ said Walsh, coming up behind him. ‘Don’t reckon it had anything to do with the paint job, do you?’

  Chance turned away from the building in disgust, started to roll a cigarette.

  ‘It wouldn’t be hard to find out who owned the title,’ said Walsh.

  ‘Just a name on a piece of paper.’ Chance cupped his hands around his lighter and lit his cigarette. ‘Same with the house. All we’d be doing is wasting our time.’

  A wide grin spread across the Irishman’s face.

  Chance grinned back. ‘You thinking what I am?’

  ‘Indeed, comrade, great minds think alike.’

  ‘You still in contact with our former employer?’

  ‘Don’t work her parties anymore, but I know people who do. I can set up a meeting.’

  ‘Do it.’

  FOUR

  Half past five in the afternoon but darkness had already chased away all but the last few streaks of daylight. Chance threaded his way through the knots of office workers heading home, their neat, compartmentalised lives something he could scarcely comprehend.

  Walsh had added his leather jacket to his layers, the ever-present Keffiyeh around his neck. Chance had a thick black woollen crew neck under his denim jacket but still felt the cold. He welcomed it as a sign he was getting the upper hand in the fight against malaria.

  The two men turned into a narrow bluestone lane, the surface slicked clean by rain, stopped outside a black painted metal door. Walsh pushed a red button next to the door, smiled for the closed-circuit camera mounted above.

  The owner of the building, all five stories, was a woman named Vera Leigh. She was a former working girl who’d saved her money, gone into business for herself, a high-class brothel, followed by a successful city nightclub. She’d settled into her dotage by running Melbourne’s best-regarded S&M dungeons. Japanese rope-work bondage, air deprivation, whatever fetish or fantasy one desired, provided you had the cash to pay.

  Walsh and Chance had bounced at her nightclub. On occasion, Chance had ferried clients from there to the dungeon, located in an anonymous brick building, once a textile factory. He’d only ever got as far as the reception, where a blousy brunette behind the counter always greeted him like he was dropping in to buy bread and milk. The walls behind her were painted deep red, bristled with hooks holding an array of chains, handcuffs and leather bondage implements. The dull thud of techno trance always played from black speakers mounted on the wall.

  He and Walsh had also done security work at some of the invite only parties Leigh held every few months in her apartment, a warren of stairways leading to different themed rooms. The two of them would pass the time celebrity spotting among the businessman and footloose rich engaged in a night of drug and alcohol-fuelled sex.

  The black metal door opened to reveal a bulk of a man with long red hair tied back tightly in a pigtail, a matching beard. A swirl of tattoos peeked about the line of his black T-shirt. A dozen studs ran down his outer left ear, his eyes were hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans.

  ‘Walsh,’ said the man. ‘Been a while.’

  ‘Angel. This is Chance.’

  Chance could feel Angel’s eyes stare at him behind the dark glasses.

  ‘No offence, Walsh, but I got to pat both of you down.’

  Walsh raised his hands, indicated for Chance to do the same.

  Formalities over, Angel led the way into an oak panelled room dominated by a set of leather armchairs and sofas arranged on a square of Turkish carpet in front of a large open fireplace. Several logs burned, the flames crackled and spat. Above the fireplace hung a large, framed black and white photograph, Leigh hanging drunkenly off Mick Jagger at an after party during the Rolling Stones’s Melbourne tour in 1973.

  ‘Miss Leigh will be down in a minute.’ Angel stood next to an old-fashioned metal drinks tray bristling with bottles of different shapes and sizes. ‘She said to help yourselves to drinks.’

  Chance waited until Angel left the room, picked up a bottle of Chivas from the tray, poured Walsh and himself a finger each.

  ‘He doesn’t look like much of an angel to me.’ Chance passed the drink to the Irishman. ‘That some sort of S&M name?’

  ‘It’s his tattoos, a pair of huge angel wings on his back. Saw them once. Fucking incredible.’

  Chance sipped his drink, smiled. Cheap scotch decanted into a Chivas bottle. There are reasons rich people are rich. Sometimes it’s because they’re smart, mostly it’s because they don’t spend their own money.

  He scanned the room for the closed-circuit camera. The entire building was rigged with them. Leigh probably watched them now from her personal quarters on the fifth floor. Chance had been up there during lulls in her parties. Leigh, bored, would exchange pleasantries while he tried to ignore the images of squirming flesh on a bank of screens that took up an entire wall.

  ‘The prodigal son returns,’ said Leigh from the doorway. She grinned, stepped lightly into the room. Her tall, lean figure and mischievous smile helped hide the fact Leigh had left her sixtieth birthday behind long ago. Clad in black turban, tight-fitting black clothes with long red fingernails, and red lips, she reminded Chance of a large spider.

  ‘Liam told me about your little, ah, cosmetic surgery.’ She let Chance kiss her on the cheek, stepped back, held his chin in a taloned hand and surveyed his face over the tip of her electronic cigarette. Her sunken eyes, lined with shadow, shone with reckless energy, despite her advanced years.

  ‘Rather an extreme makeover, but your Gaelic co-conspirator tells me the events warranted. I like it, makes you look cruel.’

  ‘How’s the S&M business?’ said Chance.

  ‘Booming, darling boy. Just booming.’ Leigh poured herself a generous measure of clear-coloured alcohol, didn’t offer to refill her guests’ glasses. ‘You’d be amazed at the amount of money powerful people will pay to be chained and whipped. It’s like the businessmen’s drug.’

  ‘Speaking of drugs, you don’t happen to have a
real cigarette on you?’ She put her drink down, looked at her electronic cigarette in disgust. ‘I have to use these things, doctor’s orders. Got to suck so hard to get the faintest trace of anything, feels like I’m giving a blowjob.

  ‘You know, Gary,’ said Leigh, taking the packet of tobacco from Chance and starting to roll a smoke, ‘your face would work a treat in my dungeon, the punters would love it.’

  ‘Maybe another time, Vera.’

  ‘Yes, of course, you’re here on far weightier matters. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Information.’ Chance fished the business card for Touch of the Orient out of his pocket. ‘On the people behind this.’

  Leigh blew out a stream of cigarette smoke, glanced at the card like it was a fresh turd.

  ‘Positively reeks of low-rent sex, I can tell just by looking at it.’ She handed the card back to Chance, gave him an indolent flick of her hand. ‘Not the sort of place I’d be involved in.’

  ‘But you can find out who is. Not just the public face, their associates. In particular, I want to know if there’s any connection to an ex-Australian soldier called Frank Dormer, although he may not be using that name.’

  ‘I don’t get out as much as I used to, darling.’ Leigh played with the large turquoise ring on one of her fingers, pretended to consider the idea. ‘Old age and all.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. You’ve forgotten more about the sexual proclivities of Melbourne’s wealthy residents than most people will ever know.’

  ‘Never one to beat about the bush,’ she said, obvious pleasure on her face at the backhanded compliment. ‘Always liked that about you, Gary. So I’ll reciprocate. What’s in it for me?’

  ‘Same as him.’ Chance gestured in Walsh’s direction. ‘Money.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Enough.’ Chance noticed the sharp look on Walsh’s face. ‘Out of my end,’ he added for the Irishman’s benefit.

  ‘I suppose I could make one or two phone calls.’