The report ended:
Franklin had a reputation in the property and investment sectors as someone who did not linger in projects, accepting lower than possible returns in order to move on. Descriptions of him include: ‘tightrope act’; ‘not a person we’d want to be involved with’; ‘high-pain, low-gain operator’; ‘much too hurried for us’; ‘one-man bobsled team, no thanks’.
Between them the Age and the Herald Sun had found four photographs. Two gave a good idea of what Mickey looked like. In one, he was in a dinner jacket, bow tie, in profile bending forward to kiss a much younger woman, a piece of hair falling. She was offering her mouth, no cheek kiss here, she wanted to kiss him. A birthday, perhaps a twenty-first, the woman had that shining look. The second was taken at the opening of a gallery in the Serena building. He was photographed with his wife, Corin Sleeman, a slim woman with short fair hair that looked as if she’d finger-combed it straight out of the shower.
I read the report again and then I set out for the city centre, walked up to Brunswick Street to catch a tram. Once tram rides from Fitzroy to the city were more or less free, it was only a few blocks, the connies knew you, looked the other way. That had come to an end too.
10
Drew waved at me from a table to the left of the door of a cavernous faux-Milano place on Little Collins Street where the staff fawned on regulars and made others feel like they’d gatecrashed a private function.
I went over and sat on an uncomfortable chair. ‘Not proving easy,’ I said.
‘Nothing of worth in life is easy,’ said Drew. ‘Why is that, do you think?’
‘I don’t think.’ I looked around at the lunchtimers, mostly men in dark suits, hard voices, eyes that darted. ‘I’ll give you a why. This place?’
‘Convenience. I’m making a house call nearby on a colleague who finds himself in an awkward position. Drugwise.’
‘Not the colleague seen after midnight helping the staff of McDonald’s? Using the fat straws to vacuum a tabletop?’
Drew ran a fingertip over his upper lip, appraised me. ‘Becoming more in touch with the world,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing.’
‘I agree. I liked the old naive me more. I plan to revert.’
‘Unfortunately,’ said Drew, ‘naivete never comes back. Like virginity and that feeling of your first tongue kiss.’
He caught a waiter’s eye before the man could look away and pointed at the menu. Insulted, the balded one slid over and took out his pad. We ordered from the fixed-price menu, two courses and a glass of wine. The man’s demeanour suggested that we were cheating, like rich tourists lining up with the homeless at a soup kitchen.
‘And the red,’ said Drew. ‘Recommend it?’
The waiter shrugged. ‘It’s red, it’s wine,’ he said. His eyes were elsewhere.
‘That good? My. Two glasses, please.’
We watched him go. He was pear-shaped, a big backside, something unobjectionable in people who hadn’t given offence but capable of arousing a violent urge.
‘Once the aim was to earn a lavish tip by grovelling,’ said Drew. ‘Now they want you to grovel. You saw her?’
‘What do the jacks say about the gun?’
‘Found in the course of a routine search of the area around Mickey’s building.’
‘Following a tip-off is what I’m told.’
Drew cocked his long head. ‘That’s good for a fit-up yarn.’
‘If admitted. Also good for a dobbed-in-by-unknown-accomplice, unfortunately.’
‘Someone betting she’s willing to go down alone? No. Accords better with weapon planted by the person who shot Mick five times through two folds of towel.’
‘Thick Egyptian cotton towel, no doubt. If there was a tip, it makes this very difficult.’
The waiter arrived, clicked down two glasses of red wine. He was leaving when Drew said, crisply, ‘Waiter.’
Pearbum stopped, turned like someone with a bad back.
‘I haven’t accepted this wine,’ said Drew.
Pearbum took in air, you could see the inflation of the midsection.
Drew sniffed his glass, one deep sniff, and put it down. ‘Oxidised,’ he said, his eyes on Pearbum. ‘Wine from a new bottle, please.’
Pearbum’s chin and eyebrows went up. Drew gave him the stare, the unblinking, sceptical look used for cross-examining hard-arsed police witnesses.
Pearbum looked back, but he was basically soft-arsed and looking into Drew’s eyes reminded him of this. He lowered chin and eyebrows. ‘Certainly, sir,’ he said. He gathered the glasses.
‘Masterly,’ I said. ‘Now we get the eyedrops in the food.’
‘If they dare,’ said Drew. ‘They dare only against the weak. What else?’
‘Not much. It seems the feds were asked but they were busy.’
‘Asked what?’
I shrugged. ‘Sarah thinks she was being watched.’
‘I’m not surprised. I’d watch her. What’s thinks mean?’
‘She kept seeing the same woman in the street.’
Drew shook his head. ‘Anyone to back that up?’
‘Only her sister and the deceased. Then there’s the actual property invasion and the suspected one.’
‘I know about them,’ said Drew. ‘Unreported is the problem.’
‘What about Rick the driver?’
‘I was going to ask about Rick.’
Pearbum’s replacement arrived, a slim youth carrying a bottle and new glasses. He uncorked the bottle and poured a splash for Drew, who gave it a cursory sniff and nodded.
‘As two blokes having lunch,’ said Drew. ‘What?’
‘She probably did it,’ I said, ‘but she presents well. No visible twitches, engaging candour, scorns angry jilted lover angle, says little sister Sophie was always saying give me your toy.’
I tried the wine. Pearbum had captured its essence: wine, red. ‘Sophie’s a hope. She may be able to point the finger somewhere else, vaguely point, there’s a chance.’
‘We’ll have to talk to her,’ said Drew. ‘Our mutual friend say anything about her?’
‘No. I don’t think she’s on their team.’
‘We’ll find out in due course. The old boy says she’s staying with friends.’
‘Mickey worked for the Massianis for six years,’ I said. ‘I read they’re on this building royal commission’s playlist.’
Drew put a finger to the outer corner of an eye, took on a strange Asian-Caucasian look. ‘My instinctive reaction,’ he said, ‘is that if Mickey could’ve hurt the Massianis, he’d have long been part of the structural underpinning of a prestigious office tower.’
‘I’ll ask him about that,’ I said.
‘Do that,’ said Drew. ‘Ask him. He went to Monash, Steven Massiani, tell him you went to Melbourne. He’s probably haunted by feelings of inferiority like all Monash graduates. Law and engineering, first-class honours. For what that’s worth.’
Drew looked up at the painted ceiling, at the badly painted fat nudes and cherubs and bowls of fruit. ‘I wonder why they don’t combine law and transgender studies,’ he said. ‘What about law and hairdressing. Law and podiatry. Law and Hopi Indian ear candle therapy, law and…’
The youth arrived with our first course: slices of chicken breast stacked with things in between. Standing in a puddle of balsamic vinegar sauce.
‘They used to fan the food around the plate,’ Drew said. ‘Now they give you mounds, you have no idea what to do.’
‘Wreck it,’ I said.
We wrecked, we ate.
‘Plus,’ said Drew, ‘I’ve never seen the point of pine nuts.’
‘It’s about texture,’ I said. ‘Get you to the footy this week?’
He put his head to one side, gave me the sympathy look designed to lull prosecution witnesses. ‘Saints play Carlton,’ he said. ‘For the Saints, I have nothing but contempt. For Carlton, I reserve a special loathing.’