In the job, it wasn’t hard to get gripped by someone.
Bent forever, the job. Why not? Terrible pay, the hours, the conditions, the risks. It only took a few days for him to work out who he had signed up with: the dim, the school bullies, bodybuilders, martial-arts fanatics, control freaks, thrillseekers, loners, kids from cop families, kids brought up by mum.
In uniform, a full understanding of the job slowly dawned. A life spent dealing with the dishonest, the negligent, the deviant, the devious, the desperate, the cruel, the callous, the vicious, the drunk, the drugged, the temporarily deranged and permanently insane, the sick and sad, the sadists, sex maniacs, child molesters, flashers, exhibitionists, women-beaters, wife-beaters, child-beaters, self-mutilators, the homicidal, matricidal, patricidal, fratricidal, suicidal.
Some of them dead.
You could quickly slide into otherness, estrangement from the civilian world, a sense of entitlement. What did it matter if you didn’t pay full price for your clothes, your drycleaning, got the free coffee, a sandwich, if people bought you drinks in pubs? You could take lotto tickets, not pay at places. People gave you horse tips, invites to clubs, you could go after your shift with a mate, everything on the house, the best girls.
Just give your name. Expecting you, the bloke.
They gave every sign you were the sexiest thing that year, you had experiences not normally had on a date or with the wife. When you were pissed, someone gave you something. And then one day you got the call.
Shit, mate, bastard pulls me over on the Tulla, goin a bit over, yeah. Not the fine, mate, the fucken points, gonna have to get the fucken pushbike out, have a word, can you? Appreciate it, mate.
You knew someone. You made the call. And you were a fully paid-up mate. A travel agent rang to say you had a free week on Hayman Island, the plane, the hotel, the vouchers. They pointed you to discounts on cars, televisions, washing machines, carpets, gym memberships, booze, plastic surgery, BMX bikes.
Anything.
Every year, there were more bent cops, the number ran in tandem with the number of crims, particularly drug crims, making unthinkable amounts of money from selling ice, GBH, Special K, ecstasy.
The demand was insatiable, a dealer grew rich supplying just one private school, every kid over twelve had tried some of them. No night out was complete without drugs, tradies got stoned after they downed tools for the day.
On any Friday, an army of couriers hand-delivered snort, bazooka, incentive to customers in the CBD, to bankers, brokers, lawyers, accountants, advertising agencies, architects, property developers, real-estate agents, doctors.
The money was visible everywhere and everywhere you heard the resentment from cops.
Mate, the Holden’s clapped, the wife’s lost her job, now the holiday’s at the in-laws. It’s like fifty metres of fucking mud before the water. They’re all there, the zombie father, the brother, he’s a petrolhead bludger, the wife’s worse, whinges non-stop, doesn’t lift a fucking finger except to paint her nails. Compares with we pick up this piece of shit, he’s maybe twenty, he’s driving a Porsche, we know him, he’s got an apartment in Docklands, it’s A-grade whores, fucking Bali, he says you think I’m that stupid boys I’m driving around with shit in my car? Don’t waste your time, what do you blokes make? Fifty? Sixty? Fifty on a horse today, mate, fucking thing misses the start. Never mind, tomorrow’s another day.
Villani put his hands behind his head, tried to massage his neck.
Dancer had saved him. When the gambling had him by the balls, when Joe Portillo had sent his scum around with a message that there were ways he could pay his debt, Dancer saved him from the grip.
Thirty thousand bucks in the Myer bag.
‘Kitty’s healthy,’ said Dance. ‘Had a few big ones. I’m lending. Pay me when you sell your house and make five hundred grand capital gains.’
Save, pay Dancer back five grand at a time, that was the plan. Then Greg Quirk came along and it was on hold. When he offered the first repayment, Dance said, ‘Please, mate, no. Long forgotten. Forgiven and forgotten.’
Greg Quirk.
Greg was scum. His brother was scum. And his father. Grandfather too, the dog-killer.
For a long time, lying about Greg didn’t bother him. It wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t until the dreams started. Even then, it wasn’t just about seeing Greg die, the way the three of them stood there and watched him bleed out, he foamed, twitched, his legs kicked, little dreaming kicks.
It was about being an honest man. A man of honour.
Honour’s not cheap, son. Don’t give your word unless you’ll do it or die trying.
What the fuck did Bob know about keeping your word? He said he would come back for them in a few weeks and it was years. No car came down Stella’s street that Villani did not hold his breath and wait for it to stop. In bed at night, when cars passed, he put his head beneath the pillow, pressed his face into the mattress and with both hands pulled down the pillow.
His child out there, with the street animals, his Lizzie. The sum of his failure as a father and as a man. He simply had not cared enough. When the moment came to go to her, to show her that her father loved her, he turned his back.
Job first, everything else second. And it had always been so.
Bob Villani’s boy. The DNA glowed in him.
Did Bob have his Greg Quirk? His Greg Quirks? Small men executed in the dark paddies? A single shot. The trembling knees, the puzzled-dog eyes, the falling.
He could not go back on Quirk. It had entered into his being, his own blood. By his testimony and by his silence, he had given them his word. That was not disputable, he knew that, they knew that.
The dying Lovett. He had sought some redemption for his sins.
I leave you with the thought that we, that’s the three of us and by extension the whole fucking squad and the whole fucking force, we have failed the little Prosilio girl.
He switched off his lights and went to the window. Below, the bright ribbons of traffic. Across the road, the dark of the school and its grounds, the botanic gardens. Then, far away, the glow of the highways, and, in the sky, gleaming in the clouds, the full luminescence of the huge city.
BIRKERTS PICKED him up. When they were in the city, at the lights, Villani spoke.
‘Western Ring,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I want to see where Kidd and Larter came unstuck.’
Birkerts rested his forehead on the steering wheel, it was not a sign of respect. ‘We’ll have to go all the way around to be on that side.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Jesus,’ said Birkerts. ‘Feeling okay?’
‘I didn’t go there, it’s been bothering me.’
‘Did I not hear you say yesterday that it was time to move on?’
‘After this, we move on.’
They drove in the morning rush. Birkerts put the radio on. Villani read the paper, put his head back, drowsed.
‘Crash scene coming up,’ said Birkerts. ‘Blink and you’ll miss it.’
Villani sat up, they were in the left lane, closing on the spot where Kidd and Larter came undone.
‘Pull over,’ he said.
Birkerts indicated, they stopped a good fifty metres beyond the crash scene, just before the exit. Trucks rocked the car.
‘Now what?’ said Birkerts.
Villani said, ‘Just have a look. Sniff.’
‘Don’t need me, do you?’
Villani got out, choked on the heat. He walked back to where clumps of couch grass had greened, given life by the hosing down of the burning wreck, the seats, the tyres, the oil. On the dirt strip between the highway and a fence, a few stunted native trees clung to life, their limbs ceaselessly moving in the hot road winds. Beyond them was another dirt strip, a fence, then a wasteland, its only feature an abandoned building. A maker of explosives had sprayed its logo on the east wall.