A Different Turf. Jon Cleary
man again, no rank. He hedged: ‘I thought you and Kate could handle it on your own. There’s no need for three of us.’
Kagal did not reply at once, seeming to concentrate on his driving. It was a beautiful late spring day, summer’s heat come as an early visitor. The sky had a glitter to it, like a distant ocean through which the red fin of a Qantas jet scythed like a bloodied shark. They passed a jacaranda, a purple burst of smoke in the tiny front garden of a scabbed and peeling house. The air, coming in through the open window of the car, miraculously was fresh and clean, as if pollution had been turned off for the day. It was the sort of day that Malone dreamed of for his retirement.
‘There is, you know,’ Kagal said at last. ‘Have you read this morning’s papers?’
‘Just the front page.’ He usually read the morning papers over his salad sandwich lunch. Or, on the days when he went against Lisa’s instructions, over his meat pie lunch.
‘Daley Girvan is resigning.’ Girvan was an Independent who held the seat of Bligh, the electorate in which most of the homosexual community lived. ‘He has leukaemia. I’ve heard he has about three months to live.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I only met him once, but he seemed a nice bloke.’
‘Even though he’s gay?’
‘Even though. What are you getting at John?’
‘The Dutchman says he will make a run for the seat – he never wastes any time. Labor will put up a gay candidate -mere are two or three in the party – it must put some of the old blue-collar unions guys on the verge of a stroke …’ He broke off while he speeded up and took the car through an amber light, just beating the red. ‘Anyhow, Vanderberg is going to beat the drum about helping the gays. There’ll be no more gay-bashings, not if The Dutchman has to come out on to the streets and stop it. So he says.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘One of his minders is gay, though Vanderberg doesn’t know it. That’s between you and me, okay?’
‘You’re everywhere, aren’t you?’ But Malone said it without rancour.
Kagal smiled. ‘You’d rather we all lived in our own little pink precinct? That’s what some of the activists want. I don’t think that will get them anywhere. It would be reverse ostracism.’
‘Then you’re not in favour of the activists?’
‘If they had their way, they’d bar half-and-halfs like me.’
‘What about the activists who want to out all gays?’
Kagal shook his head. ‘Like you said, everyone’s sexual preferences are his own business.’
‘You think it might be a consortium of activists who are killing these kids?’
‘They’re activists of some sort. This the place?’
They had drawn up outside the playground. The mothers were there with their small children; their faces turned like tiny satellite dishes as the two detectives walked through the playground and across to the far corner. There was no gang this morning, just Les the leader and Foxy.
‘Where are the rest of your mates?’ Malone asked.
‘At school.’ Les went on bouncing the basketball that he and Foxy had been tossing at each other.
Malone introduced Kagal, then said, ‘This is Les Coulson, he’s been charged with bashing Bob Anders.’ Kagal showed no expression, just nodded. ‘And this is – what’s your name, son?’
‘Steve Stefanopolous,’ said Foxy. ‘I ain’t been charged, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘Steve’s father owns the house our mate Justin lived in,’ said Coulson. He had stopped bouncing the ball, but held it as if he might hurl it at them. There was an arrogance to him that he must have acquired at an early age: it was case-hardened, a metal skin.
‘You’re Greek? Born here?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You work or still at school?’
‘I work for my dad. He give me a coupla days off, to, you know, get over the shock. Justin being knocked off, I mean. You guys got the killer, that why you’re back here?’
‘Not yet,’ said Malone. Coulson sneered. ‘The reason we’re back here, the killer was around this way yesterday morning—’
He stopped, got the effect he wanted. The two youths looked at each other, their aggression abruptly forgotten for the moment. Then Coulson said, ‘Here? In this playground?’
‘I dunno, maybe he was. But he knew I’d been to see you yesterday morning, so he must’ve been somewhere around here, watching us.’
Coulson laughed. ‘Christ, that’s a joke! A killer tailing the cops and they dunno anything about it!’
Malone held his temper, but felt Kagal stiffen beside him. ‘He might’ve been around before we got here. Tailing you. You’re the ones he’s after, not us.’
The laughing stopped; Coulson bounced the ball, once. Stefanopolous blinked as if something had just flicked him across his sharp-featured face. On the other side of the playground a child screamed and there was a rush of mothers towards a see-saw where a child had fallen off.
‘Did you notice any stranger around here yesterday?’ Kagal spoke for the first time. Malone could feel the tension in him, as palpable as if he had his hand on the younger man’s arm.
‘There might of been.’ Coulson was less arrogant now; there was tension in him, too. ‘People come and go all the time through here. It’s a short-cut to the other side of the park. We’d of noticed him, though, if he was a poof.’
‘Really? How does a poof look? Like this?’ Kagal was baiting him; he put a hand on his hip in an exaggerated stance. Malone let him coast: Bob Anders’ friend had a score to settle here.
‘Some of ’em, yeah. But you can smell ’em, if you know who you’re looking for.’
‘And you go looking for them every Saturday night?’ Kagal took his hand off his hip; Malone relaxed. For a moment he had feared that the situation was going to get out of hand.
‘Friday nights, too. It’s open season all week round.’ Occasionally Coulson showed flashes of another personality, one who had had some education.
‘Are you still at school or do you work?’ asked Malone.
‘He’s just finished his first year at uni,’ said Stefanopolous with some pride; but Coulson didn’t look pleased at the disclosure.
‘What are you taking?’ said Kagal.
Coulson was off-handed, as if he preferred the subject had not been raised. ‘Arts. History.’
‘What happened to you?’ said Malone. ‘Turned you into a poofter-basher? Did something happen to you as a kid?’
He wondered if Justin Langtry had ever mentioned to the gang what his stepfather had done to him. He felt Kagal look at him, but he didn’t return the glance. He felt certain Kagal would raise the question with him later.
‘Jesus!’ Coulson half-turned away in disgust. ‘Why does anyone have to be molested to hate gays? It’s just fucking natural, isn’t it? I mean if you’re natural. Normal?’
‘Homosexuality has been around a long time,’ said Kagal quietly.
‘Sure it has. The Greeks invented it, didn’t you, Steve? Socrates and his boys, stuffing it up their bums and telling them to be philosophical about it.’
Stefanopolous did not look happy at belonging to a nation that supposedly had bred homosexuality. ‘Ah shit, I dunno about that—’
‘I think it