‘Sleeping pills. Benzodiazepine. Alcohol. Lots of both, a lethal amount.’
The doctor felt his jaw with a small hand. He was very tired. ‘He’s just come off the dialysis. Feel like hell when he wakes up.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Tomorrow.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s arrived already. Come around noon, he should be talking then.’
Cashin left the building and rang his mother, kept it short. Then he drove to Villani’s house in Brunswick, parked in the street and walked down the driveway. He’d rung on the way. ‘Tony’s room’s open, next to the garage,’ Villani had said. ‘I think it’s been disinfected recently.’
The room was papered with posters of football players, kick-boxers, muscle cars, a music stand stood in a corner, sheet music on it. A cello case leant against the wall. Cashin looked at the photographs pinned to the corkboard above the desk. He saw his own face in one, long before Rai Sarris, a younger Cashin, looking at the camera, in the pool at someone’s house, holding up a small Tony Villani. The boy was the adult Villani shrunken, retouched to take away the frown lines, to restore some hair at the temples.
That’s how old my boy is now, Cashin thought, and sadness rose in him, to his throat. He sat on the bed, took off his shoes and socks, slumped, elbows on knees, head in hands, tired and hurting. After a while, he looked at his watch: 2.25 am.
A car in the driveway. A few minutes later, a tap on the door.
‘Come in,’ Cashin said.
Villani, in a suit, tie loosened, bottle in one hand, wine glasses in the other. ‘The news?’
‘He’s going to be okay. They got him in time.’
‘That’s worth a drink.’
‘Just the one bottle?’
‘You’re supposed to be fucking frail. Although, personally, I think it’s all been wanking.’
Villani sat in his son’s desk chair, gave Cashin a glass, poured red wine. ‘Serious attempt?’ he said.
‘The doctor says so.’
‘That’s a worry. Know the why?’
‘He rang my mum a few times, feeling down. She asked me to talk to him. I didn’t.’
‘That’s like a summary of a short story.’
‘What the fuck would you know about short stories?’
Villani looked around the room. ‘Been reading a bit. Can’t sleep.’ He ran wine around his mouth, eyes on the posters. ‘This isn’t just any grog,’ he said. ‘But wasted on some. Smoke?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I’m giving up tomorrow. Because you’ve given up.’
The nicotine hit Cashin the way it used to after a surf-raw, eye-blinking. He drank some wine.
‘Definitely not your 2.30 am cask piss,’ he said. ‘Somehow I can tell that.’
‘Bloke gave it to me, I couldn’t say no.’
‘Work needed on that before you front up to ethical standards. Is this early rising or late to bed?’
‘Remember Vic Zable?’
‘Amnesia is not the problem.’
‘Yeah, well, Vic got it tonight, carpark at the arts centre, can you believe that? The guy doesn’t know an art from a fart. In his ribs, couldn’t get closer range unless you stick it up his arse. The shooter was sitting next to him, the silver Merc Kompressor, quadraphonic radio on, heater’s going, he gives Vic the whole magazine. One little fucker bounces around inside Vic, comes out behind his collarbone, hits the roof.’
Cashin took a sip. ‘How many left-handed friends has Vic got?’
‘You’re like a cop in a movie. Two we know so far. One’s in Sydney, the other one’s not home. I’ve just been there. There was a moment when I thought we’d get lucky.’
‘Gangland hit arrest. Cop hailed.’
‘In my dreams.’
‘How’s Laurie?’
‘Good. The same. Pissed off at me. Well, we’re mutually pissed.’
‘What’s wrong?’
Villani took a drag, his cheeks hollowed, pulsed out three, four smoke rings, perfect circles rolling in the dead air. ‘Both of us having…affairs.’
‘I thought you just looked?’
‘Yeah, well, not much joy at home, if I’m not knackered, Laurie is. She’s got all these night functions, the races, corporate catering, sometimes we don’t see each other for days. We don’t talk anymore, haven’t talked for years. Just business, the bills, the kids. Anyway, I met this woman and the next day I actually wanted to see her again.’
‘And Laurie?’
‘I found out about her little adventure. Don’t leave your mobile account lying around.’
‘Cancel out then, don’t they? Two little adventures?’
‘It’s a question of who went first, cause and effect. I’m said to be the cause of her rooting this cameraman dickhead. She’s with him now, in Cairns, catering for some moron television shit. Probably on the beach, fucking under a tropical moon.’
‘Grown poetic,’ said Cashin. He didn’t want to hear any more, he liked Laurie, he had lusted after her. ‘Is that what being the boss does?’
Villani poured wine. ‘I just pedal. I’ve got this pommy cunt Wicken on my back, he’s cut out Bell, report directly to him. Don’t understand the politics, don’t fucking want to. I want Singo back, I was happy then.’
He sighed.
‘We were both happy then,’ said Cashin. ‘Happier. I’ll drop in on him in the morning.’
‘Shit, I’ve got to get out there, there’s never a fucking minute in the day. Well, what’s with Donny?’
‘The lawyer says there’s been harassment, cars keeping the family awake. Why didn’t you tell me about Hopgood?’
‘Thought you knew the history of bloody Cromarty. Still, Donny might turn up.’
‘Or not,’ said Cashin. ‘And we never had a fucking thing on him. Nothing.’
Villani shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see. Forward, what do you do about your brother?’
It had been on Cashin’s mind. ‘Failed suicides. I know bugger all about it.’
‘Wayne’s alive, failed suicide. Needs to put in more effort. Bruce’s dead. Well done, Bruce. Your brother’s the family success, is he?’
‘No,’ Cashin said. ‘He’s just clever and educated. Plus the money.’
Villani filled the glasses. ‘And the happiness, in spades. Not married?’
‘No.’
‘Someone?’
‘No idea. The last time I saw him was when I was in hospital. He didn’t sit down, took a few calls. I don’t blame him, we don’t know each other. Just doing his duty.’
‘Sounds like Laurie on me and the family. If he wants a shrink, there’s this bloke Bertrand saw when he went sad after that Croat cunt stabbed him. Not a cop shrink.’
‘The Croat’s the one needed the shrink. Bertrand needed a panel-beater.’
They had shared a life, they talked, smoked, Villani went into the night and came back with another bottle, open. He poured. ‘You think about the job? A person of leisure. Time to think.’
‘What else was I good for?’ Cashin was feeling the long drive, the hospital, the drink.
‘Anything. You’ve got the brain.’
‘Don’t know about that. Anyway, I never thought, I didn’t know what to do, stuffed around, surfed, then I just joined. Lots of fuckwits but…I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a job.’ Cashin drank. ‘Getting introspective, are we?’
Villani scratched his head. ‘I never felt the worth of it till I got to homicide. The robbers, well, that was full-on excitement, us against the crooks, like a game for big kids. But homicide, that was different. Singo made me feel that. Justice for the dead. He say that to you?’
Cashin nodded.
‘Singo could pick the right people for the squad. He just knew. Birkerts was bloody hopeless at everything but Singo picked him. Bloke’s a star. Now I pick people like Dove. University degree, all chip and no shoulder. Doesn’t want to be black, doesn’t want to be white.’
‘He’ll be okay,’ Cashin said. ‘He’s smart.’
‘And now,’ said Villani, ‘I’m trying to get justice for drug scumbags got knocked before they could knock some other arseholes. Plus I get lectures on politics and fucking dress sense and applying the right spin. I now know why Singo blew a brain fuse.’