*
Furn had rarely encountered a road beyond the vast tracts of the outback where the traffic moved to his liking; nonetheless, he had managed the return trip to Melbourne with speed enough to keep him content. He parallel parked in between a couple of garbage cans in a narrow side-alley and in the end he and Breeze were only a few minutes late to the eleven o’clock South Bank rendezvous with Azu Nashy. Nashy was facing the city from Maxine Cafe’s second floor balcony in the Southgate complex. On the glass table top was a lipstick marked latte, a leather satchel bag and a torn-out crossword page. The tables around them were empty, set ready for the impending commando-like lunch hour raids of the hungry workers from the myriad of office buildings in the vicinity.
Nashy had already set an extra chair on the other side of her table.
Breeze was walking ahead and chose the one directly opposite her. ‘How’s the coffee?’
‘I’m trying to give it up, so don’t ask me to praise it. Did you get anything out of Barry Jewel?’
Breeze hooked an arm over the back of the chair thus also beating Furn to his favourite pose. ‘A guy like that doesn’t just walk into a bank and start making all the right moves. I think the good teacher went to his own special kind of school, had his own unique instruction.’
Nashy frowned, unimpressed.‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah, I think Furn hit him first.’
Furn snatched up the menu from between the salt and pepper shakers and opened it up to the lunch offers. ‘I only hit him because he wasn’t telling us anything good. We need him out on the streets. Maybe he’ll lead us to the Sapiens – if we’re really lucky, maybe to Wragg Dokomad himself.’
Nashy was down to the last sip of latte and sought to accentuate it with a loud sigh of appreciation. ‘You want Jewel back on the streets?’ she murmured on the other side of it. ‘On what grounds? Five years off his sentence for good behavior? That would require the tidiest cell in the whole system.’
‘No, we just act nervous when he starts barking lawsuits about police brutality.’
‘So, now you’re going to tell me beating him up was a conscious strategy?’
‘That’s right. All part of the job.’
‘Well, I’ll see what I can do.’ Nashy slipped on her silver Gucci sunglasses - her own portable two-way mirrors. ‘Your predecessors to this case, the Criminal Investigations cops who took a leave of absence on the grounds of being scared shitless...as far as we know the only person they questioned was Jewel. And they didn’t get very far with him at all. Not after the Sapiens found out who they were.’
‘But Riley is hoping we attract the same kind of attention?’ said Furn. ‘He’s setting us up.’
‘He didn’t think you’d mind,’ replied Nashy unapologetically. ‘Rogue Intercept, after all, is the name of your business.’
‘You’d better give us the names of our perturbed predecessors in the case,’ said Breeze. ‘Perhaps, we can be wiser for their experience.’
Nashy took a moment to consider the request before replying, ‘Officers Pinter and Wershakov.’
Furn turned to Breeze. ‘Do you know them?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ said Breeze. ‘They’re good drinkers. We’ve had a few sessions down at the Geebung Hotel. Their idea of an exotic vacation would be to try the imported beers.’
The waiter came over with a polite voice and a disinterested look. He wrote down Furn’s order of capellini pasta served on a base of Mexican green chilies and lightly grilled barramundi and a bottle of white wine and departed with a glance at Nashy’s cleavage exposed from her loosely buttoned green cotton blouse.
‘Not hungry?’ Furn asked, not accepting Breeze’s dismissive shake of head as readily as the waiter had done.
‘They don’t have protein on the menu,’ murmured Breeze.
Nashy extracted a blown up passport photo from the satchel bag. ‘The man you’re looking for: Wragg Dokomad.’
Breeze slid the photo to his side of the table. The face he was looking down at was menacing: brooding dark eyes, a bony jaw and spiky black hair that resembled sea-urchin spines. A former dental technician now suspected of involvement in a dangerous underground movement; a world class scientist for a brother, who was now somehow dependent on him for survival - the photo was unsettling without being particularly informative about any of that.
‘You can see if they positively identify him, but I daresay the most likely outcome from a visit to Pinter and Wershakov would be a dint in their supply of beer, or, if they’re not being so hospitable, another lawsuit.’ Nashy reached deeper into her bag. ‘And we’ll see how the Barry Jewel angle plays out too. But there isn’t much time, so Riley has asked me to look for another.’ She extracted a brown manila envelope and slapped it down on the table. ‘Ever heard of the basketballer Clancy Catlett? Plays for the Melbourne Tigers.’
Breeze shook his head. ‘I’m only interested in the NBA. What about him?’
‘He got beaten up in his Toorak mansion three weeks back. Two perps.’
‘Mansion? The local players don’t live in mansions, do they?’
‘I can’t speak for the whole league but this one ain’t no tin shed. Catlett gave us some descriptions of the attackers, and one of them matches Wragg, albeit with his physical dimensions exaggerated – perhaps, not surprising considering Catlett was getting pummeled so comprehensively at the time. DNA samples recovered from the house, however, have confirmed it was Wragg.’
The waiter returned with the capellini pasta and a wine. Nashy ordered another latte.
Furn went immediately for his fork and the pepper shaker. ‘So what was taken?’ he asked as he twirled up a mouthful of pasta.
‘A valuable player trophy,’ murmured Nashy. ‘The investigating officers didn’t get far on the robbery angle. The trophy itself wasn’t so valuable.’
‘Did Catlett receive a Sapien card?’
‘It seems no. Not that the investigating cops were inquiring about such things in their first response, so who can be sure. Maybe Catlett souvenired it. But an interesting coincidence has popped up. The tattooist who did a lot of work on Catlett over the years has since turned up dead. The beating he took was interspersed with bullets. And on this occasion there was a card.’
‘Sounds promising,’ said Breeze. ‘Any leads? A motive?’
Nashy shook her head. ‘Nothing. No specks of DNA this time. And that fits the usual pattern. When the Sapiens take someone out, the only loose ends they leave behind for the cops is the task of informing the next of kin.’
Furn ate another mouthful of pasta and took the envelope. ‘Is Catlett in town?’
‘You’ll find the number in the file. Give him a call. And don’t waste time trying to solve house break-ins or murders. Find Wragg and get him to the Fairfield Military Hospital. That’s all we’re interested in.’
‘So what is it with Dr Dokomad?’ asked Breeze. ‘He needs a new organ or something?’
Nashy’s countenance hardened. ‘The good Dr Jachom, who will be performing the operation, specialises in limb reattachment. He was more or less hounded out of Holland for questionable practices that for the best part remain confidential. Dr Gustav Dokomad is an expert in toxicology - poison development.’ She smirked grimly. ‘Are you beginning to see why this job has fallen onto you?’