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Twelve: Too Many Tomatoes
The 1812 Overture, cannons and all, woke me at about one fifteen in the morning.
'If you're blonde with long legs keep talking, otherwise leave your message after the tone,' I said into the gadget.
'Jack, it's me.'
'Ollo!'
'Yeah, I need you here right away, as soon as possible, ASAP.'
'You do know what time it is? You're two hours away.'
'Yeah, I need you, we need you.'
'Can it wait?'
'No.'
'This better be good.'
'It is boss.'
'Where's Sunshine, is she okay?' I began to wake up, I slipped out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and made my way to the bathroom.
'She's here with me, we're in the tomato house.'
'Who else is there?'
'Just me, Sunshine and an Iranian illegal immigrant named Thomas.'
'What's he doing there?'
'Not much he's dead.'
'You didn't shoot him!'
'Give me a break Boss.'
'Don't touch anything, I'll be there,' I said and hung up.
I slipped on my jeans and an old T-shirt, jumped into the Beetle and hit the gas, it stalled. I tried again, and nothing, this was not like my trusty steed. I got out of the car and was thinking of kicking it but stopped myself. Cars and women, both can be temperamental at one thirty in the morning, so I tried a different approach.
'Come on baby,' I said. 'Please start.'
I got back in the car, hit the gas again and presto, the engine spluttered into life.
I drove north up the Northern Expressway and then onto the motorway which eventually ends up in Sydney, a couple of thousand K's away. As I drove along my mind began to wander. It's funny how things turn out. To my surprise dinner with Kashmere had gone very well. I had expected that it would end in an argument, probably because I had gone looking for a fight, I had all sorts of barbed comments lined up ready to throw at her through the evening, but it had started with a very unexpected kiss and things only improved from there. In the car park at the restaurant I decided to do the gentlemanly thing, after all I do fancy myself as a gentleman, so I opened the car door for her, I didn't get thank you but then I didn't get I can open my own door either. I had walked towards the restaurant but Kashmere didn't move, I walked back to her. Problem? I had said, she said nothing but held out her hand to take mine and we walked into the restaurant that way. I was pretty sure it was one of her little tricks but what the hell. I had held her chair when we got to the table, it was touch and go who would get there first, me or the waiter, but I've always been quick off the mark, this time she had said thank you and called me an old fashioned gentleman at heart. The menu was in French but never to be outdone by anything foreign, especially the waiter who was dying to have to translate for the beautiful lady, I searched through looking for anything familiar. Kashmere was happy for me to order for the both of us so we began with oysters natural, then moved onto fillet mignon and finished off with crème brûlée. I suggested a bottle of rosé and Kashmere had looked up at me with those big blue eyes, fluttered her eyelashes and smiled. What's a man supposed to do? We had talked about business, which was the reason for dinner, but I wasn't too sure anymore. Apparently Old Stan and his grandsons had quarrelled over some business deal and my job was to find out what was going on and, if possible, put it straight. She was afraid that whatever they were doing wasn't exactly legal but stressed that, although she didn't get on with her brothers, they were family and she wanted to do what she could for them. Business concluded we had coffee and Baci, a little chocolate morsel. Kashmere informed me that baci meant kiss in Italian, I don't speak Italian so had to take her word on that one, then she moved closer and kissed me. A pretty good end to a pretty good evening and I had gone there expecting World War Three.
I turned north to Morgan where the motorway crosses the big bridge over the River Murray and, two hours and a bit after leaving Adelaide, I was cruising through Morgan an old River Murray port and rail terminal. I turned into Old Stan's fruit block, it was actually a tomato block but then tomatoes are technically a fruit. I cut the headlights, almost ran down a kangaroo and pulled up in front of the hot houses and packing sheds. It was pitch black and there were a thousand stars in the sky to greet me, including the Southern Cross, a fairly impressive sight.
'Boss?'
'Ollo?'
'Over here.'
'Where's the body?'
'This way.'
I turned to follow his voice and immediately walked into something.
'Fuck!'
'What's up?'
'Hold on.'
I stood with my eyes closed and counted to thirty, when I opened them again my night vision kicked in and I could make out shapes, I saw something move, it was Ollo and I followed. There were some big sheds and piles of crates, old cars and utes, the odd tree and then we came to a door to one of the hot houses. Inside it was pitch black, I stepped through the door, crouched low and switched on my torch, it had a powerful beam and lit up a person moving right in front of me. My reflexes went to work and thinking that it could be the killer I was ready to hit out with my torch.
'G'day boss,' said a sexy voice.'
'Sunshine,' I said and then shone the beam around until it settled on a body. The man had been of medium height, he looked sort of Iranian, he had a thick crop of wiry black hair, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes, the standard uniform for fruit pickers and private detectives.
'So what happened?'
'No idea boss.'
'You sure he's dead?'
'Long gone.'
'Tell me about him.'
'Like I said on the phone his name's Thomas, he was a fruit picker, an illegal immigrant.'
'Right, do we know anything else about him?'
'No,' said Sunshine.
'So how did you manage to stumble on the body?'
I had sent Ollo and Sunshine up to Morgan to get jobs on Stan's fruit block picking tomatoes. None of the brothers, or Stan or Kashmere for that matter, had ever set eyes on Ollo or Sunshine, so I thought it would be good to get them on the staff, so to speak, of the fruit block where they could keep their eyes open and make a few discreet enquiries.
'We were romping around in our tent…'
'I don't want to know,' I said.
'You do Boss, you do,' said Ollo. 'Give a girl what she wants and life can be a wonderful thing.'
'Well let's just skip to where Sunshine is replete.'
'Okay, well we were, you know, in our tent at the caravan park, when a great bloody semi-trailer thundered by. I poked my head out of the tent and it was Stan's Organic Produce and then another bloody semi thundered by and this one was Stan's Free Range Eggs. Well I got suspicious…'
'I got suspicious, if you remember rightly,' said Sunshine.
'It was what I said, if you just think back and remember.'
'I said that it looked a bit off.'
'Something rotten in the state of Denmark,' I said.
'Nah, something rotten in the bloody Riverland. Ya see it was after midnight and bloody dark, so what's these trucks doing at Stan's place, it's closed up for the day see. So we gets in the old jalopy and follows them and they come here to Stan's Farm. We pulled into a clump of old trees and finished the trip on foot. All the sheds were lit up and there were all these Middle Eastern looking workers and what they were doing we had no idea.'
'I did,' said Sunshine.
'Yes well, Sunshine says they must be bringing in tomatoes and eggs and repacking them as organic.'
'There were just too many tomatoes,' said Sunshine.
'We were sort of just climbing around outside and well, I fell over a table and chairs and someone shouts: Hey who's that? So we did a runner and hid in here.'
'They came looking for us.'
'Yeah but we kept our heads down and later they closed up, turned off all the ligh
ts and the trucks took the repackaged tomatoes and the repackaged eggs down to Adelaide, that's our guess.'
'So basically,' I said, 'they are selling ordinary tomatoes as organic and battery eggs as free range.'
'That looks like the long and the short of it Boss.'
'Well that's a fraud, no doubt about it, but not worth murdering somebody,' I said.
'It was when we came to go that I stumbled over the body,' said Ollo.
'I got Ollo to ring you,' said Sunshine. 'We weren't too sure what you would want us to do.'
'Well I think we all need to get the hell out of here. Go back to your tent and romp around, or whatever, I'll head back to Adelaide and when I'm a few K's down the road I'll ring the cops. Turn up for work tomorrow as if nothing happened but keep your eyes and ears open.'
'Yes boss.'
'Right boss.'
'Get some shut eye and let me know what happens in the morning.'
'Yes Boss.'
'Right boss.'
I went back to my car and waited while Ollo and Sunshine made a strategic withdrawal. I was trying to figure out why an illegal immigrant would be killed? The problem with killing people, apart from the fact that it's not socially acceptable, is that the first one is hard, the second gets easier and then after that it's open season on humanity. Our friend Thomas may have been killed on a whim, or for farting, then again he may have been killed to stop him from talking. I grabbed my phone and rang Kashmere.
'Hello,' said a groggy voice.
'Shakespeare here.'
'Why are you ringing me at this hour?'
'Because if I have to be out of bed, then you can get out of bed too.'
'Shakespeare you are all heart.'
'I'm in the Riverland and there's a problem here with tomatoes.'
'You woke me up to talk about tomatoes.'
'Okay, what do you know about battery eggs?
'They're not as nutritionally sound as free range eggs and they're no good for poaching.'
'One more question.'
'Keep going, I'm enthralled.'
'What do you know about illegal immigrant workers?
'I know they wouldn't be phoning me at four o'clock in the morning.'
'The one in Old Stan's shed wouldn't phone you at any time, he's lying there dead.'
I waited for her reply but didn't get one, my car door was yanked open and I was man handled out of the car. I hit the dirt with a thud.
A sun tanned individual in a check shirt, with a mass of black unkempt hair and dirty fingernails grabbed me and pulled me to my feet, I can't say I'm a fan of dirty fingernails. Someone behind me held my arms while the man with the dirty fingernails shouted something and smashed his hand across my face. There was a pause in the proceedings and I took the opportunity to say:
'Fellas you've got the wrong end of the stick, I work for Stan's grandsons, I come in peace.' Another sun tanned individual, his fingernails weren't crash hot either, punched me in the stomach. Now I may not be a killing machine anymore but I'm sure as hell not a pacifist either. I brought my heel down hard on the toes of the man holding me from behind. 'I'm here with full authority of the owners,' I said as I moved into position, I was ready for action. The dirty finger nailed individual screamed at me and then pulled a knife, it was a fairly deadly looking flick knife, the blade was long, thin and slightly curved and the handle was a rather nice shade of red. 'You do know that flick knives are illegal in Australia,' I said as he lunged at me. I grabbed his right arm and moved around behind him in a flash and threw my left arm around his throat. The second unhygienic finger nailed individual came at me with a lump of wood, I moved back about a foot and the wood made contact with his companion's head who slumped to the ground. I swivelled around, all my old reflexes coming back to my rescue, and the base of my hand rose upwards and, unfortunately for my assailant, his jaw became dislocated. He joined his companion on the floor. The third man now came at me from behind, I was preparing to upgrade my defensive response when a Chrysler gangster looking automobile turned into the car park and out jumped Hugo, Theodore and Young Stan.