Saturday, March 9, 2024

The Ketamine Konnection

Crossing Il Capri’s threshold from Las Vegas’ Gates of Hell heat into the cryogenic aircon of the casino hotel was one small step for Raymond Halliday, one giant stagger for the South of the Border-born bellhop toting three leather suitcases bound with buckled straps.

Cap askew, forehead damp, the porter wheezed: “Señor, the bags … now they come with wheels.”

Turning slowly, Halliday seemed surprised not at this insight into modern luggage but that a minion could or, indeed, should speak. Satisfied the staffer had nothing further to add, Halliday swung back towards reception, checked in and was waiting at the elevator before the bellboy had made it halfway across Il Capri’s expansive foyer.

Tuesday the 9th. A quarter of 11. Seventy-five minutes until the production conference. Time to shower, punish the mini bar and rinse out with Listerine Cool Mint breath freshener, roughly in that order.

The mini bar was better stocked than he’d anticipated. If he’d bothered to check his Longines DolceVita watch when he finally reached the hotel’s conference room, he’d have noticed he was late. No matter. Most of the seats encircling a large lozenge-shaped table were empty. In the movie industry, timeliness was for apparatchiks. Real players operated by their own internal “screw you” clocks. 

Eventually there was enough above and below the line film crew present to tackle the most important agenda item: lunch. By 1, the executive producers and principal cast members still hadn’t arrived. “At least the workers are here,” began the production manager.

Only Halliday didn’t laugh. With his back to the room, he was working the buffet again, forking remnants of Maine lobster onto his plate. The manager cantered through the production schedule. The producer, one eye on Halliday who had graduated to spearing shrimp and scooping oysters, touched on budgets.

Director James Snide held up a hand. “When Raymond has finished prepping for the End Times, perhaps we can get to the script changes.”

Halliday heard only the final words. As a scriptwriter, they were two he loathed, along with “early deadline” and “budget restraints”. Plus there were elements within the script he couldn’t alter. Not unless he fancied sharing his Coco-Mat king-size bed in his fountain-view room on Level 20 with a horse’s head. If there was a single word which encapsulated any gangster’s approach to business failure it would be “unsentimental”.

Snide’s assistant stabbed at a MacBook Air’s keyboard and the movie’s title popped onto a wide screen on the far wall: The Ketamine Konnection.

 “I’m thinking of changing ‘ketamine’ to something more marketing friendly,” said Snide. He paused for effect. Halliday, with a gobbet of shellfish part way to his mouth, also paused when his anal sphincter suddenly clenched. Was dope being cut from the movie? He pictured that horse’s head with a risus sardonicus grin resting on his bedroom pillow.

Snide continued: “How’s this sound – The Special K Konnection? After all, Special K is a street name for ketamine.”

Halliday’s sphincter relaxed. But not too much. As a screenplay hack he could live with that minor change. As a man with debts to pay to Sláinte, L'Chaim and Gānbēi (sadly, as he’d discovered, not a reputable, broad-church New York loan firm) he was just happy to live. “Love it,” he said a little too loudly.

Dudley Duncan the Prop Master, a louche young man in white linen, hurriedly seconded Halliday’s support and gave Snide a kiss-ass smile: “So clever of you to have the plot revolve something other than stolen old school drugs such as coke, ice or horse.”

Again with the horse? Halliday suppressed a shudder. “It was my idea.” He swiveled to address the room. “Ketamine is the dope du jour. It was Matthew Perry from Friends’ mellow hallucinogen of choice when he hopped into his hot tub for the last time. It might also make the user feel disconnected and not in control. Or as I like to think of it: Tuesday.”

He gestured at the assistant who flicked onto the screen photos showing a bulky khaki kitbag packed with small plastic sachets containing white powder. The little bags had been consolidated into larger glassine ones. “I calculate that at $100 per gram, the prop K will appear to be worth around $12 mill. Street value, that is.”

“Nothing to sniff at,” said Duncan.

To match the movie’s new title, the script needed to be tinkered with. Halliday dutifully made notes then stared out the floor-to-ceiling window at the forced gaiety of the Las Vegas skyline. The plot remained unchanged: two divorcees on a cross-America road trip in a pink Corvette convertible pick up a handsome hitchhiker lugging a kitbag. He’s stolen ketamine from the Mob. The women, in turn, steal it from him. Neither the hitchhiker nor his former colleagues in crime are happy. The women flee.

Up next on the agenda: the DP blocked out the following day’s shoot capturing the divorcees exchanging a drug parcel after they’ve slo-moed towards the camera, seemingly floating on the quivering heat of the desert sand. No shortage of the latter around Las Vegas. It was a one hour 50 drive to the planned Death Valley location. A 2nd unit director was already setting up just off the CA-190. “Look ethereal,” had been Snide’s directive during rehearsals.

 

Wednesday the 10th. To Halliday it felt like pre-dawn. The bedside clock insisted it was 0805. He finished dressing and wondered for the second time in 15 minutes if lighting a cigarette would set off an alarm. Perhaps he could wrap the room’s smoke sniffer thingee in a hand towel. A soft knock on the door. Through the spy hole, Halliday saw enough fresh linen to flag who the visitor was. Duncan was shouldering a canvas kitbag.

“Heavy?” asked Halliday.

Duncan ignored the question. “It went well, thanks to me.” He heaved the bag onto Halliday’s rumpled bed. “What better way to disguise real dope than transport it in plain sight as a movie prop? A few busybodies questioned the two identical bags. I said we needed a backup if the first got damaged.”

“And where’s the dummy dope in the second bag?”

“In the trunk of the Corvette. Our leading ladies are taking it for a spin to the location site this morning. As you insisted, the real thing has a green tag sown on the bottom, the prop has a brown tag.”

There was that sudden clenching feeling – again. “No,” cut in Halliday. “The actual K is stashed in the bag with the brown tag, the dummy is green.”

On cue, the room phone chirped beside the clock. Snatching up the receiver, Halliday heard the Concierge announce that Messrs Sláinte, L'Chaim and Gānbēi were waiting for him in a limousine outside the hotel’s entrance. He looked at Duncan. The two men chorused an obscenity. Approximately 78 seconds later, they tumbled out of the lift into the hotel’s car park, scrambled into Duncan’s rented Jeep and, after torching the rubber on its tyres, were catapulted onto The Strip.

After a moment, a black stretch limo squealed out of Il Capri’s semi-circular driveway, sliced into the boulevard’s traffic, took a hard right, then a left, then another right; all the time keeping the Jeep in sight.


That quiet, sunlit morning, the corner of West Bonneville Ave and South Grand Central Parkway was blessed with the presence of a black and white patrol SUV. With their vehicle parked far enough onto the kerb to allow traffic to flow, deputy sheriffs Kellaway and Branston tried to, firstly, avoid spilling just-bought coffee on their crisp beige uniforms and, secondly, avoid any work.

Kellaway spotted the Corvette a moment before his second sip. Two scarf-wearing woman in the front seat squealed with laughter as their hot pink car fishtailed through the intersection. Within a heartbeat, it was rear-ended by a Jeep which, while still hovering several inches off the ground, was T-boned by a stretch limo. Melded together by momentum and twisted metal, the three vehicles spun in a choreographed swirl before slamming into the black and white’s hood. Scalding coffee seeped into the deputies’ crotches.

A kit bag, hurled into the middle of the intersection by the impact, lay ripped open. Hundreds of plastic sachets spilled white powder onto the asphalt.

Branston was first out of the patrol car, one hand on his holstered weapon, the other covering his sodden fly. He reached the passenger side of the Jeep as Halliday slowly lowered the cracked window.

The scriptwriter smiled: “Officer, I can explain everything.”

# # #

Copyright 2024 GREG FLYNN


Saturday, January 13, 2024

Dial 1300-687-337 for MURDER

It’s so hard to find a good murderer these days. The new flush of wet workers lacks the sense of commitment we established killers bring to an undervalued industry. Sure, if you’re casting around for someone to bump off a rich relative who’s taking far too long to go to his and your reward, you could pop a Help Wanted advert on 4Chan. A few hours later you’d have a queue of would-be villains at your front door, many wearing vintage ice hockey goalie masks, plus an uninvited squad from Five-O. That’s the trouble with cops, they’ve also got Internet access.

All I’m trying to do is earn a dishonest living. I don’t charge GST and if my business had a LinkedIn account I’m confident its posts would be peppered with Likes. My own dislikes include dark operators who drift into my life, rain on my parade and then imagine they can simply drift out. For example …

St. James Infirmary Blues began playing. It’s a ringtone not to everyone’s taste but I rather like it. The caller ID read: “Unknown.”

“Palmer’s Process Servers,” I said. “You name ‘em, we nail ‘em.”

The caller was near traffic. I could hear it rushing by. There was an intake of breath. “Hello?” The female voice was quizzical. “I thought you’d be a man.”

“Not the last time I looked. Jilly Palmer speaking.”

“I’m told you do more than serve legal papers.”

“Let’s see. A stranger cold calls me, making an accusation. I’d guess you’re planning to set me up.”

“No. I’m planning to ask you to kill my husband.”

She had my full attention.

“I’m in Bayswater Road,” she said. “Let’s meet at Madame Fifi’s Palais de Hop. I’ll be wearing …”

Then came an unpleasant, hoarse noise. Choking. “Bitch,” said a muffled male voice in the background. Silence. Seconds ticked away.


From my Springfield Avenue apartment, it took me and my violin case a few minutes to reach the public phone she’d obviously called from. The hanging handset was dangling above the footpath, still swaying. There was no sign any of Kings Cross’s passing after-dinner crowd gave a hoot. Under the awning outside Madame Fifi’s, a CCTV camera pointed towards the nightclub’s front door and in the general direction of the payphone.

Inside the club, a tall gorilla in a one-size-too-small suit blocked my path to the owner’s office. “I want to check your CCTV,” I told him.

“Bugger off, sweetheart,” said the gorilla.

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

He made a sudden move towards me then his body convulsed and he lurched backwards, bursting through the door behind him and flopping at the feet of an only slightly surprised Madame Fifi. Lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of an old one, she glanced down at the man and across at my bright yellow cattle prod. My open violin case was in my other hand.

“I need to see tonight’s CCTV recordings.”

“Since you asked so nicely, Jilly,” Fifi said, skirting the prone body and reaching up to a bank of monitors set into a wall.

I poured us drinks from her liquor cabinet before watching the action on the main screen. Two men wearing hoodies jumped from a pale van, ran to a slim, blonde woman in a lamé dress making a phone call and tossed a bag over her head. Hey presto. The woman and the van vanished.

Fifi knew them. “Stone cold killers.” And the lady? Caroline Lamb, wife of Richard “Baa” Lamb, entrepreneurial drug dealer - picture Uber Eats except with crack and hillbilly heroin delivered to your quivering hands.

I’d never spotted the wife before but, over the past few months, I’d seen Baa flitting in and out of a Victoria Street terrace.


Now the thing about a lock picking kit is that it doesn’t always work and it can make scratchy sounds like a mouse with mischief in mind. There I was on my knees on the scruffy house’s doormat, jiggling a wafer pick in the lock. Failure. Then the door swung open.

He wasn’t wearing a hoodie this time but I recognised him. No excuse immediately came to mind, so I smiled up at him, unclipped the violin case lid and sent 5,000 volts through his testicles. Jaw clamped shut, he rose half a metre off the hall floor and pitched forward onto the mat.

At the end of the hallway, light spilled out of a room to the right. Baa and his other contract hit man had seen too many Halloween-style serial killer movies. They stood either side of a bed wearing operating gowns, rubber gloves and thin-lipped smiles. Baa held a mini chainsaw, his new buddy gripped a flensing knife. Strapped to the bed lay a squirming Caroline Lamb, unready for the coming slaughter.

It was the sidekick who saw me first. “Who the hell …?”

Baa turned. “Get the bitch!”

“That’s the second time tonight I’ve heard that word,” I said. “I really don’t like it.”

Knife pointing at my throat, the wannabe killer lunged. “Bitc…”

Ideally I should have opened the window first. As his flying body shattered the window frame, exploding glass made a racket that could be heard in Penrith. He landed on the street kerb and even from that distance I could see his crutch was smoking. Note to self: perhaps lower the prod’s voltage.

Baa raised his chainsaw. “There’s room on that bed for two.”

“You’ve cost me money and wasted my time,” I said. “The first is a nuisance, the second unforgiveable.”

Before I stepped towards him, I closed the door.

 # # #

Copyright 2024 GREG FLYNN

 

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Anchors Aweigh

Behind the ragged circle of men on the wharf, two large almost rusted-through anchors leant against a stone wall. In front of the group, the Port of Fremantle was abustle. A flock of barges ferried Australian soldiers to stately troop carriers waiting on Gage Roads, a stretch of white-capped deep water off the mouth of the port. A destroyer tailed by a light cruiser, both with White Ensigns snapping in the afternoon sea breeze, nosed out through the north and south moles to act as shepherds for the converted ocean liners and their live cargo. Sprouting at the moles’ tips, anti-aircraft batteries pointed their barrels at the empty sky.

In the harbour, American, British and Free Dutch depot ships, with broods of submarines tethered to their sides, lined the southern wharf.

On that crisp day in the winter of ’42, Fremantle – tucked far away from the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway – was a safe refuge. Unless you happened to be a bookie’s runner.

The five men gathered on the wharf ignored the naval traffic and distant troop ships. They stared down at a bloated body with a yard-long, glistening anchor chained around the corpse’s ankles. Water seeping from the victim’s loud checked jacket and powder blue trousers puddled on the wide wooden planks.

Only Kent and a well-groomed man at his side had taken off their hats.

The medical examiner, with a slight tremor shaking his skeletal frame, stroked what chin he had. Kent looked up and asked: “Was he alive or dead when he hit the water?”

“Too early to say,” replied the doctor, his battered Gladstone bag open at his feet. “But, either way, I can’t imagine he was happy about it.”

A snort of laughter came from the doctor’s left. Police Inspector Patrick O’Halloran of Fremantle’s Finest was amused. At O’Halloran’s shoulder, Lumpers Union organiser Johnno Johnson was less so.

 “Stop pissing around and get this bloke outta here,” he snapped at the doctor. “My men want to get back to work.” A dozen yards away, the expressions on lounging wharf labourers gave lie to the claim.

 “Right-o,” nodded O’Halloran. “We’ve seen enough. Bag the body.”

 As Johnson raised a beefy arm towards the wharfies, the smoothie at Kent’s side held up a hand. Manicured fingernails caught the light. “One moment.” There was a pause for effect. “If those navy divers scoping hulls for limpet mines hadn’t spotted my man, would he have been found?”

 Martin Terrence Leary, bookmaker to all of Perth and nicknamed (except to his face) “M.T” because that’s what your wallet was like after laying a bet with him, didn’t wait for an answer. Tugging at Kent’s coat sleeve, Leary moved away.

 “That’s why I’ve hired you,” he said softly. “Look at them – a quack who hasn’t drawn a sober breath since the Depression, a copper whose laziness is only exceeded by his greed, and an empire-building union thug.”

 “Johnston’s Popeye anchor tattoo is quite intimidating.”

 Leary allowed himself a tight smiled before steering Kent towards the road. “Bobby Mahoney went missing five nights ago while taking bets in pubs and along the wharves. The Dutch are tightwads but the Yanks, Poms and our boys are mad punters.”

 “What’s left to bet on?”

 “The AIF turned Ascot racecourse into one giant campsite but there’re still the country trots, the interstate doggies and, frankly, anything’s fair game … well, fair-ish.”

 “A rival bookie?”

 “Any competitors are either careful or dead.”

 Leary drew a 4 x 6 glossy from inside his suitcoat. The natty Bobby smiled into the camera lens. “I hope you don’t mind me paying cash. Putting a private investigator’s bill through my accounts seems unnecessary.” The photograph and a plain, bulky envelope slipped into Kent’s hand.

 A few steps later they stood by Leary’s Bentley 8 Litre, the rear door held open by a pin-neat chauffeur. “Find Bobby’s killer or killers and there’s a bonus,” said the bookmaker.

 “And then I turn them in to O’Halloran?”

 “I’ll save you the trouble. Meanwhile … a lift?”

 Kent angled his wristwatch away from the sunlight. “I’m on the clock. I’ll start now.”

 

Visting pub after pub wasn’t an issue. Visiting and drinking ponies of shandy seemed against nature but Kent kept sipping, kept asking questions. In his pocket, the envelope lay like a talisman. Just one phone call and his luck had changed. Maybe. Shaking heads and bugger-offs strengthened the “maybe”. Either the bar flies were scared to admit seeing Bobby or they had other motives. Telling the truth wasn’t an option.

 Lunchtime. Day Two. One more phone call. As he started to climb the stairs to his Mouat Street office, he heard muffled ringing. The office’s locked door delayed him then, panting, he snatched up the receiver. “Hello” came out in a gasp.

A woman’s smoky voice asked: “Louis Kent?”

Another gasp.

“Is everything alright?”

“Asthma,” he lied.

“It should keep you from shooting Japs out of palm trees in the Pacific.”

“There’s that,” agreed Kent.

“My name’s Polly. I hear you’re the private dick who’s been asking about Bobby Mahoney.”

Normally, Kent would’ve chafed at the Yankie slang but her emphasis on the second part of the job description gave her a free pass.

 At two, he edged down narrow stairs into the Twin Anchors, an underground bar off High Street. In a far corner, a handful of US navy personnel with gob caps askew, lit Chesterfields, drank whisky and played poker around a small table. In another corner, three lance corporals from the Australian 9th Division rolled their own, drank Swan Lager and sized up the Americans. A mix of nationalities and uniforms lined the bar.

 At the staircase end of the bar, Kent’s caller perched on a stool. Polly patted the stool beside her. Kent felt himself picking up his pace. He imagined cartoon-like steam hissing from ears.

 She ordered, he paid. They paced their drinks as she explained she’d overheard two boozy customers – the bar’s not hers – skiting about making easy money deep-sixing a bookie. Stretching across to straighten Kent’s tie, she whispered: “Details cost cash.”

 He nodded, she continued. “I gather Bobby saw Johnno Johnson and some of his blokes meeting Yank sailors in a cargo shed on Friday night. There were crates of bourbon, cartons of cigarettes.”

 “Smuggling?”

 “Darl, it’s unlikely they were donating to the war effort.”

 “Bobby was a low-level runner. Why would he care?”

 “This isn’t about fags or grog. It’s about who was there with Johnno.” Polly flicked her hair towards the mirror behind the bar. “I’ll go freshen up. You can think about how much the mystery person’s name is worth.”

 Only 70 percent of the customers watched her walk through the rear door towards The Ladies. The other 30 percent were playing poker.

 Turning away, Kent squinted at the mirror. He and his reflection agreed he was getting too old to hunt killers. After 15 minutes, he eased himself off the stool. With Polly there wasn’t that much freshening up needed. Pushing open the rear door he felt it strike something solid. Something solid in high heels. Polly lay on the scuffed carpet, convulsing. On his knees beside her, Kent heard a grunted: “… ran.”

 “Which way did he run?” An empty question. “I’ll call for …” he began. Her face tilted down, eyes finally shut.

 

Leaning forward, Leary lifted a Dunhill lighter towards Kent’s cigarette. There was an almost imperceptible shake of excitement in the bookmaker’s hand. “Great progress,” he said.

Crammed into Kent’s office and sitting on straight back chairs, the pair were close enough to play pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake. With his free hand, Leary briefly tapped Kent’s knee as an admonishment. “But you still don’t know who killed your informant or where the murderer ran off to.”

 Kent shook his head. “Friday night. Johnston is doing a smuggling deal with some Yanks. Obviously not the first. Bobby blunders by. No need for anyone to panic – someone in the bookie business isn’t going to snitch. But maybe there’s no need to tell the police. What if a cop is already there … with his hand out? So, it could be ‘ran’ not as in ‘run’ but as in ‘O’Halloran’.”

Leary lit his own cigarette and exhaled at the ceiling. “Police Inspector Patrick O’Halloran. Literally a greedy pig.”

“You indicated he was as bent as a nine bob note.”

Leary pushed back his chair as far as it would go, which wasn’t far. “Mr Kent, I owe you a bonus. It’ll be here by six.”

“You’re not planning anything rash, I hope.”

“Dear, dear, no. But, on the subject of rashes, let’s just say there’s an itch I need scratch.”

 # # #

Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

The Ghost Writer

Leather soles on polished marble. As I clip clopped towards the hotel’s reception, the two desk clerks – over-groomed males with practiced front-of-house smiles – looked up. Eye sweeps took in my small suitcase and tailored linen jacket. Tusting and Huntsman respectively. Perfectly acceptable appeared to be their joint decision but my kit wouldn’t stop them running a credit check after I eventually ascended in the metalwork lift to my room. That week, Nice was hosting a particularly unsavoury crowd: literary folk.

Suitcase sitting by my right ankle, I rested my hands on the white and gold desktop. “Graham Browne. With an ‘e’ – the surname not the Christian. I have a reservation.”

“Welcome back, Mr Browne,” they chorused.

“Back?” My surprise unsettled them.

Correcting a guest was presumably découragé but the taller of the two receptionists took his career in his hands and a deep breath before saying: “En effet, Monsieur Browne. You were with us in February. Four nights. We have upgraded you to the same room.”

“Impossible. I’ve never stayed at Le Negresco.”

An awkward moment’s silence was guillotined by the shorter receptionist. “Je suis désolé. No doubt an error on our part.” 

The high room looked across Promenade des Anglais to the late afternoon’s silver sea. I looked across the room. Blue, beige, black, pink. In terms of interior design, there was a lot going on. Difficult to forget.

Unpacking my suitcase, I dropped the formal invitation I’d received to Le Festival du Livre de Nice 1975 onto an ornate side table and chose the nearest of three closets to hang up my jacket. The invitation specified lounge suits to be worn for the book fair’s opening night but surely authors weren’t meant to dress like auditors?

The telephone’s clanging startled me. I picked it off its cradle and my publisher immediately added to the alarm. His usual Hooray Henry honking was gone. Brief pleasantries over, he gave a dry cough. “Graham, I’ve just arrived at the hotel. Can we catch up for a quick drink at, say, five-ish? There’s the rather delicate matter of that advance I need to discuss. You’ve missed the deadline.”

“Advance? Deadline?” My visit to Nice was becoming a string of one-word queries.

“We paid you on time, Graham, and … err … now we’d like the first three chapters of that new novel you promised.”

Rather than begin a stream of “what, what?” I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the phone in my hand. Yoram Housman’s voice squawked through the earpiece. I’d stopped listening.

It was happening again. Somewhere in the world, someone with the high-end tastes of the Shah of Persia and the spending habits of Elizabeth Taylor was impersonating me. It’d been three years since the other “Graham Browne” last hijacked my identity and swanned from the Hotel Nacional De Cuba to the Colony Room Club in London, running up bills and running out on women. Digging through the leather compendium I’d stashed in my suitcase, I found an ageing, creased Le Monde newspaper clipping mailed to me via my agent by the irate manager of Paris’s La Tour d'Argent restaurant. The headline in the entertainment pages read: “Auteur célèbre dans une bagarre au restaurant”. The accompanying story claimed I’d thrown a punch at a waiter after he’d smiled at my “date”. A flashbulb-lit black and white photograph captured a man baring a vague resemblance to me being given the bum’s rush by waitstaff while a peroxide blonde in stockinged feet beat their backs with her high heeled shoes. La Tour d'Argent’s manager had demanded payment for two damaged chairs and the unpaid tab. I’d pleaded that not only had I never visited his overpriced restaurant, I was at home on Cap d’Antibes at the time.

Other documents in the compendium included a paternity suit notice from a woman in Monte Carlo and a letter of demand from a Kentucky horse breeder.

Then, suddenly, my doppelganger had disappeared. Hopefully dead or in jail. But now …

A few minutes after 5 o’clock, I walked into Le Negresco’s bar with its walnut woodwork and, thanks to diligent Côte d'Azur tanning, its walnut-coloured guests. Housman appeared to have two drinks’ head start. I chose Ricard Pastis de Marseille, he stayed with The Macallan. He accepted a cigarette and then clinked glasses before he started banging on again about the advance and the late manuscript. Apparently, I’d phoned him four months’ earlier with my plans for a new book and a request for a “little something to tide me over”. In cash. I’d then met with Housman’s junior partner Rosemary in a Soho bar I’d chosen, signed the book deal, slipped the envelope of cash into my pocket and, finally, patted her knee and suggested dinner. As I’d recall, said Housman, she’d slapped my hand away.

No, I said. I did not recall the slap. In my 10 years with his publishing firm I’d never taken an advance in cash nor met Rosemary. I reminded Hausman of the mystery man of 1972. At the time I’d tagged him: “The Ghost Writer”.

Housman didn’t have the advantage of a Riviera tan to stop him turning pale. He lifted his whisky glass and tugged at his shirt collar. “I did think it strange. But authors are rather offbeat. Shall we call the police?”

I rattled the ice in my glass before taking another sip. “Not yet. You and I can outwit the fake Mr Browne. For example, what’s on 15 May?”

Housman, with no ice to shake around, emptied his glass. “That’s the day you’re to be French kissed by the new Mayor of Antibes.”

“He refers to it as being awarded the Keys to the City for my sterling work promoting the area in my novels. Those Keys aren’t simply symbolic. Not only can I go anywhere, I can do almost anything. Carte blanche. It’s an irresistible lure for the impostor to get involved in some way.”

Before Housman could order another round, I outlined how his firm’s public relations department should beat the publicity drum to preview the event in the UK and French press.

 

15 May. The hook had been threaded through the bait. By now, the counterfeit Mr Browne would be swimming towards me to be caught, scaled and filleted.

Sitting in an arched doorway in my relatively modest villa in Cap D’Antibes, I could see the Alpes-Maritime peaks in the distance. Smoke trailing from a Disque Bleu gave them a hazy, dreamy look. Forty-five minutes to the ceremony. Easy. It was a less than 20-minute drive to the event location on the marina below the towering Fort Carré.

Cigarette smoke still hung over the empty chair as I calmly walked out the front door. On the pebbled driveway my two-tone Citroën 2CV sat at a jaunty angle. Two flat tyres on the right-hand side. An Opinel knife’s wooden handle jutted from the rear tyre. Merde. It took me 60 seconds to reach the villa’s phone and another 30 before I realised the line had been cut.

Standing at my front gates, I looked around. My nearest neighbour was holidaying in Tahiti and, on the quiet backroad, there was zero chance of a flagging down an available taxi. Panama hat jammed in place, I headed towards a bus stop half a kilometre away. Thoughtfully, the local Council had set up regular services to shuttle the Cap’s villas’ support staff from the town’s centre to their workplaces and back again. The bus took 35 long minutes to arrive.

Clambering off at a stop just 200 metres from the podium, I started what, for me, was a sprint. For others, simply striding. A crowd of well-dressed people was moving en masse towards me. Was I going in the right direction? Merde - encore une fois. The event had finished.

Two gendarmes began officiously herding the departing throng off the wide boardwalk by the waterfront to allow a large black Peugeot with pennants flying from both sides of the bonnet to ease its way past.

Exhausted, I stood trying to catch my breath as the car drew up alongside me. In the back seat sat the Mayor and a man who looked distressingly familiar. There was a Panama hat on his lap. The window slid down. The Ghost Writer produced an apologetic smile. “We’d offer you a lift, old boy, but we’re off to paint the town red … and white and blue. À tout à l'heure.”

Before the window rose, he blew me a kiss.

 # # #

Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN

Saturday, May 13, 2023

The Cat’s Whiskers


Pussy’s gone? queried Bow. Whereabouts unknown, confirmed the barman without taking his eye off the tip jar. Estimate for the night so far: £10/7/6. Very nice indeed. Seemingly, every queer in London was sardined into the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, ordering Babycham, draught Carlsberg or Blue Nun, shouting “cheers” and “bottoms up”.

Straightening his skirt before craning his neck, Bow tried to see over the heads of the hooting crowd. He certainly wasn’t going to climb back onto the bar’s countertop for a better view. As Pussy and Bow, the pair had just finished their set with an encore of “All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor” and Bow, unscripted, had paused. A likely lad had beckoned with a waved business card. Purely to be sociable, of course, Bow had tucked it into his garter, turned and realised Pussy had gone.

Why? Each night the two would accept glasses of bubbles from the manageress after singing music hall ditties while strutting the wide bar. The highlight: watching punters frantically scooping away their booze in case the performers’ high-heeled shoes kicked the glassware towards the rafters.

But no bubbles on that summer’s night, 26 July 1967. Ignoring drinks offered by too-handsy Stagedoor Johnnies, Bow pushed his way to the Tavern’s concept of a dressing room – a cramped space near the men’s loos. He changed out of a silk blouse and a-line skirt into a blue suit, achieving a dour Clark Kent effect. From super drag queen to being a drag. Off stage, Bow was a creased-brow worrier.

A voice below his shoulder said in Polari, the gay slang: “How bona to vada your dolly old eek again.”

Bow wasn’t in the mood for banter. “I can’t find Pussy.”

“Women?” said the dandy little man with a shudder. “You never struck me as the type, darling.” He resembled Truman Capote without the matching bank balance. Capote chose Moscot Eyewear. Clive Johnson had to rely on National Health spectacles. During a moment’s pause, Johnson, usually indifferent to others’ feelings, sensed Bow’s concern. “Well … I saw him coming out of the loos, still in full drag and on the arm of a dashing young man of, and I imagine Pussy knows this already, very athletic build.”

“Nonsense …” began Bow before Johnson’s hand came up. 

“This evening’s different. Look around. Everyone’s been following the Sexual Offences Act debate in parliament. The wireless says the politicians are still at it and tomorrow, with luck, we too can get at it without having our collars felt.” Raising an empty glass, he swiveled around, hoping a passing mary would fill it.

 

In the warm South London night air, on the curving footpath wrapping around the front of the venue, customers avoiding the crush inside stood drinking and chortling. High up and only yards away, trains clattered on an overpass’ tracks. Bow now had a lead. A few of the revellers had seen Pussy climbing into the back seat of a plain, dark car with a man in a suit seeming to push him. 

A Tube ride ate up more time, however Bow couldn’t afford a taxi. Thirty minutes later he stood to attention at the Kennington Road police station’s front desk. The building was as blank-faced as the sergeant studying him.

“You mean the pansy in the frock?” asked the sergeant.

“Hamish McMahon,” repeated Bow.

Picking up a fountain pen, the policeman scrawled a note on a large ledger. “And you’re his boyfriend?”.

“Heavens, no. We’ve performed together for five years. We started off dressing as singing nuns but found …”

“It says here he’ll be charged tomorrow with committing an act of gross indecency in the toilets of some poof pickup joint in Vauxhall.”

“Why’s Hamish being kept in a cell?”

“So we know where to find him in the morning.”

The station clock above the sergeant’s desk read 8.25. Bow calculated if he caught the Number 59 bus he’d reach Fleet Street in 10 minutes. El Vino’s would still be open.

Open and doing a high-spirited trade. Given the street, there were journalists from the broadsheets and tabloids who flicked him knowing looks as he entered and lawyers from the surrounding chambers who ignored him. Except one. At the far end of the wine bar, away from customers plopped on high stools or propped against the dark wood counter, a tall man in an unbuttoned, pin-striped, double-breasted suit which may have been fashionable two decades earlier seemed to sense Bow’s presence. He certainly sensed a chance for a refill. “I’m drinking the allegedly Good Ordinary,” he called out.

Bow stopped at the bar, ordered and paid in coins.

At a small table wedged into a corner, Damian Wordsworth lifted the proffered glass of claret out of Bow’s hand, nodded thanks and gestured at a chair. Bow drank half his glass of hock before blurting out: “They’ve snatched Pussy.”

Wordsworth didn’t raise his long nose away from the rim. “It’s always hard to tell if it’s corked.” A final sniff then a lengthy pull. “I’m afraid if this involves a brief, old chap, you’ll need to go through the clerk of my chambers.” He saw Bow’s face fall. “But,” Wordsworth added, “I’m always delighted to chat with half of my favourite double act.”

 

The following morning, the barrister regretted both the claret and his curiosity. With the Act to decriminalise homosexual acts in private scheduled to be passed that day, why would the police bother?

Wordsworth was standing in a small holding cell which smelt of equal parts urine and despair. There was a steel bucket in the corner, probably holding both. Facing the lawyer, the still-uncharged Hamish Alfred McMahon, aka Pussy, wig off, makeup askew, sat on a bed bolted to the wall. He retold the story. Needing an urgent leak after his performance, he’d sprinted into a toilet cubicle, left the door open, hoisted the lid and his dress and, seconds later, heard the door close behind him and felt a tap on his shoulder. Then came a muttered offer “to lend a hand.” Pussy had turned and said: “I beg your pardon?” The shoulder-tapper, Constable Alan Radcliff – undercover and in his best suit – later alleged Pussy had sighed “Look at my hard-on” before thrusting himself forward.

Pussy gave a tired smile. “Untrue. I would’ve peed all over his boots.”

A steel gate clanged. They heard those same boots – and another pair – in the corridor outside. The cell door was yanked back and, in Keystone Cops style, Constable Radcliff and the front desk sergeant collided in the narrow space before stopping inches from Pussy’s stockinged knees. Radcliff, after checking his watch and smirking at his colleague, read out the charge and then recited the caution: “You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention ...”

Neither Pussy nor his barrister said anything.

 

In El Vino’s that evening, Wordsworth sipped claret and grimaced. On the wine bar table lay a fresh copy of the Sexual Offences Act 1967. Although passed by Parliament at 11.10am, it did not receive Royal Assent from the Queen until 2.45pm. As Pussy had been charged after the Act was passed but before the crucial Royal Assent for a crime allegedly committed the previous night, could he be tried? Potentially. The Act did not state whether the new emancipating law applied to offences committed prior to the legislation. Taking another tentative sip, Wordsworth made a pragmatic decision. He was acting for Pussy on a pro bono basis, so – bugger it – he didn’t plan to spend time in court. 

As he lit a long, filtered cigarette, he saw Bow approaching.

“Do you have a plan?” asked Bow.

Plan might indicate I know what I’m doing.”

 

It was Friday – to Sir Anthony Barrett, the Director of Public Prosecutions, a day more sacred than Sunday. Ahead lay two glorious days of shooting startled birds out of the sky at his estate. In the distance Big Ben struck the hour. Barrett squinted at the stiff white card bearing the club’s luncheon menu. Perhaps the baked turbot with potato crust plus a small carafe of Sancerre.

“Do you mind, Tony?”

Barrett looked up as Wordsworth drew back the chair opposite. “And if I did, Damian?”

“Such an enviable sense of humour and what a coincidence seeing you at the club. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to pick your brains about a delicate matter.”

“If this involves one of your beastly clients, you can sod off and take your chances in court.”

“Tsk, tsk, Tony … if only life was that straightforward.”

By the time Wordsworth finally pushed back his chair, Barrett had lost his appetite. The DPP’s notes on a slim leather-backed scratch pad resting by the untouched fish knife read: “Claimed entrapment. No witnesses. Charge laid was two-fingered gesture at high-profile, history-making Act. Charge’s timing relied on slowness of Royal Assent process. May reflect poorly on Her Majesty. Also, Act unclear on prior offences. Positions me (he’d underlined ‘me’) as meanspirited, out-of-touch zealot. Salacious press stories destined to run and run.”

“Can I get you anything before I go?” asked Wordsworth.

“Get the waiter to bring a phone to the table. I need to make a call to Kennington Road police station.”

# # #

Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN

Thursday, February 9, 2023

Special Delivery

 It could’ve been worse. It could’ve been Mosman Rowers. But, instead of overhearing locals at the clubhouse honking at each other about bountiful investment streams and blissful lives while poking octopus salad around their plates, Kent listened to sprinklers on poles click-clicking like cicadas and swinging in arcs to mist the en brosse lawns with measured sprays. 

On one side of a low sandstone wall was a slate path, on the other a long drop down an Angophora-clustered hillside to the bay where the pleased-with-itself rowing shed sat admiring look-at-me pleasure craft moored at an adjacent marina jetty.

He’d parked outside on a curving road, imagining curtain-twitching neighbours mistaking his ageing car for one belonging to house cleaners. High above the Harbour waters, a breeze kept the late afternoon temperature down. The wind had made the effort to cross the 4.5kms between Shark Beach, Vaucluse, and Mosman Bay bringing with it a cool edge and the delicate fragrance of self-satisfaction. The Eastern Suburbs were, after all, ever so superior to the lower north shore and the capitalisation of the first letters was important.

The path led past beds of lavender backgrounded by espaliered olive and lemon trees: Provence, packaged up and plopped right here. Before his finger could press the bell, the front door opened with an audible swoosh as though the house was desperate to suck in the real world. No such luck. A short, stocky man in a white silk Mandarin-collared shirt looked Kent up and then didn’t bother to look him down. The man had seen enough.

Kent extended his hand while stretching his lips into a facsimile of a smile. “Clive Bagnole?”

“Don’t be silly. Mr Bagnole doesn’t answer his own front door.” The man stared at Kent’s hand as if a leper was offering to high five him. “You’re late.”

“Well, I …”

“This way and try to keep up.” Silk Top swung 90 degrees before scampering across an entrance hall and down a wide corridor lined with artworks. More corridors followed with more art. Feeling like Alice in Wonderland following the white rabbit, Kent tried to memorise the warren in case he needed to show himself out in a hurry.

A final set of French doors framed a flagstone terrace. A tall man in a Panama hat sat in a plantation-style wicker chair unleashing arrows at a target 20 metres away. He lowered his bow as the last two arrows missed the target and sailed high over the cliff edge towards the foreshore below. “There’s something satisfying about knowing an entry level Merc or Beemer parked down there might be pincushioned,” the man said, reaching for a highball glass. “Tom Collins?”

“No, I’m the P.I …”

“Tom Collins is a gin and soda,” snapped Silk Top before hopping over to a wrought iron drinks trolley.

“I’m Bagnole,” said the man, apparently to clear up any misunderstanding that he’d popped in from next door to snaffle some Bombay Sapphire. He nodded towards another chair.

Holding the chilled glass that’d been thrust at him, Kent sat, sipped and tried for Smile #2. Bagnole didn’t return it. Instead he flicked a plain envelope into Kent’s lap. Inside was an A4 sheet of paper pasted with individual letters cut out of a newspaper.


Bagnole leaned forward. “I’m told they’re from the Daily Telegraph so obviously nobody from Mosman sent it. And before you ask, I’ve no idea who these three sisters are.”

“Not who, where. I’d say it’s the drop off spot. Katoomba.”

Bagnole shrugged. “Wherever.” Gesturing at his manservant, he added: “Ralph will deliver the ransom, you’re to ride shotgun. Are you armed?”

“I didn’t realise this suburb was so dangerous.”

“I’m not paying for facetious remarks. I was told you’re discreet and not averse to rough stuff.”

“That sounds like a Grinder profile. If you want me to tag along with Ralph I’ll take half my fee in advance. Cash. Any clues on who kidnapped your wife?”

“If I knew who’d snatched that bitch Chloe, I wouldn’t need you.”

 

The drive to the Blue Mountains the following evening was long and silent. Ralph, now in a black silk shirt, held the steering wheel of the Bentley Continental GT convertible with his hands at ten-to-two. Kent, in a suit, occasionally checked the side mirror to see if they were being tailed. At 8.50, the car slid to a gentle stop outside the Echo Point parking area. It was shut. Having ignored the “closed” sign, five minutes later the men stood side-by-side at the safety railing feigning interest in the rock formations branded The Three Sisters. A canvas duffel bag lay at Ralph’s feet.

Wind from the valley carried the sound of waving tree branches and a low buzzing. At 9pm, a small, dark shape outlined by pinpoints of light rose on the other side of the railing. The drone hovered for a moment before circling over their heads. A crackle. “You,” said an electronic voice from the drone. “You in the suit. Take your coat off.” Kent slipped out of the jacket and raised his arms to show he wasn’t tooled up. Fortunately, he wasn’t ordered to lift his right trouser leg. A compact pistol in an ankle holster was strapped uncomfortably against his sock.

“Suit guy,” came the Dalek-like voice again. “Take the bag and drive to the address that’s under the windscreen wiper of your car.”

“Mr Bagnole’s car,” Ralph corrected the voice. “And what about me? I have my orders.”

“Then order an Uber back to Sydney,” replied the voice.

 

A 45-minute drive. Again, it could’ve been worse. Kent might’ve stepped around the lonely wooden gate that had no fence on either side, walked up the rocky, overgrown pathway to the dour two-storey house with a single light in a window, handed over the ransom money and then been killed by the kidnappers to tie up any loose ends. Instead, he stood in a copse of trees that rose to the right of the building, the duffle bag slung over his shoulder and the gun in his hand. He could see the bright window with a desk lamp pointing downwards and what appeared to be the outline of a person near a curtain. A person who didn’t move. Fortunately, the person sharing the copse and standing 10 metres in front of him was moving slowly as they concentrated on a device in their hands. More buzzing. Another drone or perhaps the same one from Echo Point, rose and turned in a wide sweep of the area. Then, sentry-like, it halted above the house’s front door, presumably waiting to give the arriving bagman further orders.

Kent stepped up behind the drone controller. “Special delivery,” he whispered into their ear.

A female voice swore.

 

The pair climbed the stairs to the house’s upper floor. A shop window mannequin propped up by a curtain created the illusion of a guard. It wore an unconvincing wig, matching Kent’s unconvincing smile. The woman still appeared concerned. I must keep practicing, Kent told himself. Holding up a photo Bagnole had given him of the missing Chloe, he studied the woman. No doubt about it, she’d kidnapped herself.

The story came out in a rush. Bagnole had twice threatened to kill her if she left him. Kent didn’t ask why she’d want to leave. He’d met the man. She’d recorded the second threat but was too frightened to go to the police. Over the past weeks she’d refined the kidnap plans knowing Bagnole would pay up purely out of pride, not out of love. Now she presumed Kent was taking her back.

What he took was her phone with the recorded threat on it. There was no use playing it to Bagnole in an attempt to stop him going after Chloe. Bagnole would probably agree then, within hours, send someone else to hunt down his runaway bride. Kent planned to present the recording as evidence to two female detectives who he knew wouldn’t brush off the threat. Bagnole needed to be wearing his brown underwear when they came a’knocking.

“And this?” asked Chloe, her toe cap kicking the duffle bag lying on the floor.

Kent bent down. “I don’t want to appear unsentimental but I’m taking the other half of my fee. I imagine your no-doubt-soon-to-be-ex-husband won’t honour his debt.”

“The rest?”

He stood up slowly. “You’ll need walking-around money. Mosman can be expensive.”

 # # #

Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

A Stand Up Guy

A light rain began to fall. To avoid the dark one-way street in Paddington, the Uber driver dropped me two blocks short of the club. “Enjoy the walk,” he said as I slid from the backseat, trying to keep my show jacket from getting wet.

“Enjoy the one-star rating,” I replied.

At the club’s narrow front door, Jenni was running hard eyes over a queue before unclipping a tatty velvet rope and shepherding select patrons through. Her uniform: black jeans, brown bovver boots and a Hello Kitty T-shirt.

As I slipped past, she whispered: “I’m surprised they invited you back, Mr Something-to-Offend-Everyone. And … no politics this time, Harry.”

I gave her what resembled a sincere smile. I’d been practicing.

The hallway to the main bar and event room was lined with photos of grandees who’d visited the club over the decades. Halfway along was a framed black and white print of a nonplussed Bob Hawke in the Sydney Swans' nearby dressing rooms in ’84.

A beery boofhead in a leather vest leaned in close. Very matey. “Hey, that Hawkey. What a bloke!”

“Every Australian male voter’s dream candidate,” I said. “A high functioning alcoholic and serial philanderer.”

“Is that a joke, funny man?” A pause. “You suck.”

“At least I get paid for it.”

I felt my arm being clasped above the elbow. “No politics,” repeated Jenni as she shouldered Leather Vest aside and steered me further into the club.

Right on time. Above the din, I heard the MC tapping the microphone with his fingertips. “Ahem, ladies, gentlemen and however else you wish to identify – everybody’s money is good at our bar – here’s the man … unless that’s too binary … very few of you have been waiting for. The one, the only … and thank God for that … Harry Palmer.”

I took the steps up to the stage two at a time. Given there were only six, that was the extent of my athleticism. Lifting the mic off the stand, I faced the crowd as they ate, drank, stood at the bar, flirted, checked their phones and generally ignored me. “Evening all. Excuse my nerves. When you’re from the North Shore, it’s scary but thrilling being in the Eastern Suburbs.

“Everyone here is so glamorous. Take your drug dealers with their bright white Lacoste sneakers and look-at-me cars.

“What must the cops be thinking when they see a 25-year-old guy with a fade haircut driving a $600,000 Lamborghini down Old South Head Road at midnight? That he’s heading for his nightshift at the kebab shop?

“On the plus side, you know the blow is halal.

“Even the use of language in the Far East is different. Up North, when we say we’re going to powder our nose we don’t mean two of our mates will join us to cram into the end cubicle of a pub loo to do lines off the cistern lid.

“Across the Harbour, when we talk about drugs and lines we mean queues at Chemist Warehouse.

“Speaking of queues … they’re exotic here as well. Have you experienced the cosmopolitan delights of Double Bay Woolies’ checkouts just before sunset marks the start of the Sabbath? The Exodus is on. The only other place you’ll hear so many raised voices and accents like that is in a Shul in Jo’burg … or maybe St Ives.

“And I’d expected a mazel tov from you for making it on time tonight. After driving over the Harbour Bridge I rediscovered the Eastern Suburbs’ dirty little secret – there’s no parking … anywhere.

“I drove with the windows up and doors locked to find the kerbs lined bumper-to-bumper with ten-year-old VW Golfs covered in cobwebs and leaves.

“Why are you laughing? Yes, you in the Paddo local dress code. A sleeveless puffer jacket. You rebel you. To get here on time, I’ve parked across your driveway.

“Pro tip: if you find an empty spot never reverse into it. Right at that moment, a Mercedes convertible will nose into the space while the driver shouts: ‘I was here first, darhhlink!’

“You really should come and see our suburbs. The streets are empty, no parked cars. It’s almost post-apocalyptic. I’m told that after a nuclear blast, cockroaches will survive … but not in the North. We’re obsessed with insects and cleanliness. The air smells of one part Mortein to two parts Toilet Duck.

“You have your traditions too … like being ignored by restaurant staff. North of the Bridge, restaurants are pathetically grateful that someone, anyone, has turned up. Not here. At bills in Bondi, there’re customers who’ve been waiting to see the menu since 2017.

“Allowing more backpackers in just adds to staffing problems. Venue owners will still train Irish barstaff to add lime to a drink by picking up a wedge of fruit with the same hand they wipe their arse with, squeezing it over the booze then dropping what remains into the glass. Presto! A vodka and lime plus a side order of E. coli.

“Consider yourselves lucky. To live a full life, nobody needs to leave the East. During Covid lockdowns, residents here shrugged – they were spoilt for choice … the beaches, the Harbour, the vibe. When I was locked down, all I had near me were two retirement villages and a coffee shop serving Nescafé.

“OK, I have to admit I lived in the East for a few years – in a Rose Bay flat. It’s there I discovered that elsewhere in Sydney people put things IN letterboxes but in the East they take things OUT. Three credit cards were nicked from my post. It’s because banks choose plain but instantly recognisable envelopes. My suggestion to banks: send credit cards in envelopes with a fake pathology logo and a banner reading: ‘Returning herpes samples.’

“Living in Rose Bay taught me the key to keeping safe over here is to remember that Cadbury is lying to you: there’s not a glass and a half in everyone.

“As for the greatest status symbol, forget a Harbour view. Only wealth rules. If Melissa Caddick staggered out of the water at Watsons Bay covered in seaweed with a missing foot and wearing a sandwich board saying: ‘Make money now, ask me how’ there’d be punters lining up, desperate to know how to get rich quick.

“Before I go, I should add that I was told you’d be a tough crowd. Well, you won’t find me pandering to you to score some last-minute applause.

“You’d never catch me pointing out the obvious – just look at how gorgeous and how handsome you all are, sitting there perkily on your beautifully-portioned moneymakers.

“Am I right or am I right?”

I was right. Always pander.

Slipping the mic into place, I backed away.

Outside the club entrance, the rain and the crowd had dissipated. Jenni was lighting a cigarette. Shaking another one out of a soft packet, she lit it alongside hers and handed it to me.

I let out smoke and a sigh. “As I once said to Dolly Parton: ‘What a way to make a living’.”

“Cowboy up, Harry. To quote Groucho Marx: ‘Nobody told you that you had to go into showbusiness’.”

 # # #

Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN

 

 

Breaking Vows

21 September 2013.

Lining up the items on a narrow table in the sacristy, John O’Malley mentally ticked off his checklist: hipflask of Irish whiskey, mobile with sports streaming and betting apps, earbud headphones, a matchbox, a miniature ashtray and a half empty packet of Marlboro. Or perhaps he should think of it as half full. He opted for half empty.

Slipping the cache into the pockets of his cassock, O’Malley glanced at the wall clock, drew in a deep breath, gave a soulful sigh and went into the body of the church.

Outside a cool drizzle was washing urine off the footpaths of Darlinghurst. Inside the air smelt of day-old incense with background notes of stale Virginian tobacco.

He counted the parishioners in the pews. Four. Let’s pray the rain keeps others away, he said to himself and the Almighty as he made a half genuflection before the altar and headed for the two-person confessional.

Leaving the booth’s rear door partly open to let out smoke, he fitted a single headphone bud into his right ear so it was hidden. He tapped the streaming app. Two-handed, the umpire was raising the ball high. A pull of whiskey, a puff on a cigarette and, sliding back the partition curtain, he sat waiting.

One by one they shuffled in seeking a sympathetic ear, a quick absolution and minimal penance. Amen to that, was his approach. After 20 minutes it was three down, one to go.

Number Four dropped rather than slid into the seat. O’Malley felt the slight thud and, annoyed, squinted through the partition. Having pimped up the screen with flywire, he could only make out the bulk of a tall man, either bald or shaven headed, with a beefy nose and prominent chin.

The rote recital beginning “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been …” lulled O’Malley into – if he’d been Buddhist – a meditative state. Then came: “Is it true?”

“True?” O’Malley repeated, startled. It was hard to concentrate on the football while being distracted by a question.

“That you can’t tell anyone what I confess to you?”

“Priests are duty bound by the seal of the confessional not to disclose anything they’ve been told. I’ve vowed not to break that seal.”

“And you’ll wipe away my sins.”

“That’s the general idea.” O’Malley tilted the flask to his lips and took a sip. A moment later, he inhaled deeply on his cigarette.

“I’m going to kill someone tonight. I won’t be visiting another priest, so consider this a confession-in-advance.”

O’Malley gave a spluttering cough. “First up, the sin involved is riding high on the Commandments’ Top 10 hits at Number Five: Thou shall not kill. Secondly, you can’t show contrition for a sin you haven’t yet committed.”

“I remember all that going-to-Hell for a mortal sin stuff from school. So I want you to hear my confession.”

Was this the time to discuss the minutiae of Catholic teachings? O’Malley decided on “no”. “I can’t absolve you of a sin and indeed a crime you haven’t carried out. If you want my …” A squint through the partition told him he was about to lecture an empty seat. The man was gone and so was O’Malley’s interest in the footy. Closing the app, he lit another cigarette.


Alone in the parish admin office, O’Malley played the surveillance tape from a CCTV camera positioned high above the front doors of St Mary Star of the Sea. The big man could be seen walking towards the church at 2pm, 10 minutes before the confessional opened and the game began. O’Malley printed off a screengrab capturing the man’s slightly upturned face. Later video showed a thick neck atop broad shoulders as he strode away. On a far corner, he went into a pub. The Green Man. Damn, thought O’Malley. The police phrase “… known to frequent the premises” would apply to O’Malley and that bar. He needed a partner.


Sister Kate was in mufti, sneakers up on a stool in the neighbouring convent’s TV room watching Oprah. O’Malley tapped on the doorframe.

“Johnny, boy,” she called out. “Come and watch a billionairess lie to poor people by telling them all their wishes will come true if they dream a bigger dream for themselves.”

“That’s a bit judgemental, even for you.” He was glad she was sitting down. Kate was about two centimetres taller than him with a tendency to stand a little too close when they talked so he could almost count the freckles on her upturned nose while noting the ice blue of her ey … no, no, concentrate. “Care to run a dangerous errand?”


Standing on a corner opposite The Green Man, O’Malley checked his watch. She’d been in there 30 minutes. Rocking on his feet, he was conscious of the weight of the self-loading 9-millimetre pistol in the pocket of his hoodie. He’d won the weapon off a drunken US sergeant six weeks earlier in a card game on a coalition military base in Tarin Kowt, southern Afghanistan. Who knew a young Australian Army chaplain was sharp at poker? Scheduled to fly home the following day, O’Malley had ignored the boasting blowhards around the small table. Within a week he’d be demobbed and changing a khaki uniform for a black one.

Wearing a puffer jacket and jeans, Kate came out of the pub with a skip in her step. Handing him back the printout image of the would-be killer, she said: “A stranger insisted on buying me a drink.”

O’Malley’s cheeks flushed. “Did anyone know our man?”

“I didn’t need to ask. He’s in there, sitting with two mates. I was thinking of badgering him about the money he owes you from that bet.”

It hadn’t been a well thought out lie, but it was plausible. “There goes our man and one of his pals,” said O’Malley, looking at the bar door. “Thanks, I must buy you a …” his voice petered out as he tried to turn.

She stopped him with a raised palm. “I’m coming with you.”

They continued to argue as she pulled him across the road and down a narrow footpath leading to a string of tarted up terraced houses. The men they were following parted at a freshly painted front door, with O’Malley’s penitent heading inside, the other walking off. The priest and nun stood outside. “What are you going to do, Johnny?” Kate asked.

The voice behind them was as cold as a publicist’s handshake. “Yes, Johnny, just what are you planning?” Standing a metre away, a smartie with a smirk had his right hand hidden in the pocket of his long coat, pushing something hard towards them. O’Malley hoped it was just a gun.


In a pin-neat living room, the big man from the church was sitting in a chair while opening and closing his mouth. Eventually a word tumbled out: “Unbelievable.”

“I tailed them from the pub,” said the smirker. “You have to admit Johnny has made it easier for us.”

Nodding, the big man reached for a snubnosed revolver on a side table and thumbed back the hammer. “Bless me, Father, for I’m about to kill you.”

“Why?”

“You’re too good at cards. You took that drunk Yank’s money, gun and dignity. That’s why he boasted he and the others would soon be rich despite your winning streak.”

O’Malley shrugged. “I’ve no idea what you mean. Ask my parishioners: I’m a bad listener.”

“Who ignores a tip off about plans later this year to smuggle Afghan heroin in returning army vehicles?”

Trying to picture the card game and the loudmouthed sergeant, O’Malley closed his eyes. Yes. He’d heard something about Bushmaster armoured vehicles having extra padding for the trip home. “No, can’t recall a word. But … I do remember you coming to confession. Again, why?”

“Delicious irony. You’d absolve me of my sin of killing you.”

O’Malley moved his hand to his pocket. Too slow. The smirker hit him hard behind the ear with something solid.

He felt he was falling in slow motion. The 9-millimetre appeared in his hand. Swinging in mid-air, he fired a shot which blew a lamp off a far table. Then his shoulder hit the floor. The pistol slid across the polished wooded boards like a hockey puck.

“Kill him,” ordered the big man.

O’Malley braced himself. Two shots came a second apart.

Like a felled ox, a body crashed down on him. Rolling onto his back, O’Malley pushed the body away. There was a neat, dark hole in the middle of the smirker’s forehead. The big man had a matching one.

Feet apart, gripping O’Malley’s pistol with both hands, Kate gazed down at him. “It’s always a mistake to ignore the woman in the room.”

“You were in the armed forces?”

“Farmer’s daughter.”

The dead mens’ eyes stared at O’Malley. In turn, he looked at Kate. “What’ll we do?”

“I’d suggest a vow of silence,” she replied.

 # # #

Copyright 2023 GREG FLYNN