'Back from the door.'

  The guard stepped on a trip plate and the door slid open. Another guard stood there, carbine in hand. The Kray Brothers, he called them.

  'Hello, Reggie,' Loew said.

  'Shut up, cunt.'

  'Move!'

  He went through the door and began to descend. Pretty steep stairs. Had to be careful about it. Couldn't touch the rail and the cuffs made it a bit of a balancing act. He tried to calculate how many other times he'd worn handcuffs. Too many. And the worst time was when they'd got him at the airport. That time the bracelets had seemed to weigh a ton and for a moment he'd been paralysed until one of the jacks had jabbed a gun into his left kidney. He pissed blood for eight days. He'd heard there were blokes and women who played sex games with handcuffs. Freaks. They wouldn't do it if they'd ever experienced the real thing.

  He reached the bottom of the steps and waited for another door to open. He stepped through the door, bent slightly and went through the chute into the van. The waiting guard signalled for him to sit in the first of the specially constructed seats bolted to the wall and floor. The guard who had escorted him attached the handcuffs to a chain that hung from the roof of the van. The guard tested the chain and moved away.

  'Bye, Reggie. Give my best to Ronnie.'

  The other guard sat opposite and rapped with his carbine on the shield behind the driver's seat. The motor started and the van moved off. The windows were heavily tinted and the light inside the van was muted. Loew wriggled to get comfortable in a seat designed without comfort in mind.

  The guard took out cigarettes, lit one and took another from the pack. 'Smoke?'

  Loew shook his head. 'I gave it up.' Not much pleasure in smoking in here, having to slide the cuffs up the chain to take a drag. Almost a relief not to do it. Almost. He'd been off them since Dunlop told him to quit and he still didn't quite know why. Cassie'd be pleased if he could hold out. She'd been at him to stop from day one. He was tired; it was hot and stuffy in the van, made worse by the guard's smoke. He closed his eyes and began to think of Cassie. Don't. Not now. Don't think about her when you're chained up like an animal Don't think about her missing two fuckin' visits.

  'Why d'you call him Reggie?' the guard said.

  'It's a joke.'

  'He doesn't like it.'

  Loew shrugged. There was mostly no point in talking to screws, even youngish ones like this who seemed to want to show they were human. If it came to the crunch he'd be no different from the others, from the bastards at Parramatta and Grafton. He'd do what he was told and humanity wouldn't come into it. After a while he'd enjoy it.

  His mind drifted to the subject of Dunlop. Now there was something interesting to think about. Strange bloke. Very tight, but not angry-tight. Unless it was anger he had directed at himself. Loew had spent years in gaol thinking about nothing except surviving and getting out. That made for very hard time. It was Cassie who'd got him thinking differently. Got him thinking about other people, analysing them, wondering what made them tick, classifying them.

  'Why?' he'd asked her. 'What's the point?'

  She'd given the smile that always knocked him sideways. 'It's interesting.'

  'I'll try it, starting with you.'

  'Start with yourself, Kerry.'

  Dunlop. Copper for sure, and not a desk man either. He had some scars on him. The one on his right arm looked like a knife or a bottle wound and he'd taken a few biffs around the mouth. Wonder if I played it right with him? Might have been too smart.

  'Hey!'

  Loew's head jerked up. 'What the fuck . . .'

  'Keep your hands up. Don't drop them down like that.'

  Loew flared. 'You reckon I can bust this fuckin' chain. Look!' He wrenched the cuffs against the chain, strained and pulled.

  'Knock it off!'

  Loew fought down the anger, relaxed. Christ, it was hard keeping control. The guard took a grip on his weapon and sat straight in his seat.

  'Don't worry,' Loew said. 'Be there soon.'

  'Fuck you!'

  The Special Purpose section at Long Bay Gaol was a new building designed to hold sixty inmates. Currently, thirty-six prisoners were accommodated under tight security, devoted to protecting as much as to containing them. Informers, Crown witnesses, entrapment baits, agents provocateurs, few of them would have survived twenty-four hours in the general prison population. Although attempts were made to conceal the fact, these prisoners enjoyed far more comfortable surroundings than the general prison population and had extra privileges—freer movement within their compound, better athletic and educational facilities, less cell time, enhanced visiting arrangements.

  They had been taken out of the mainstream population in an administrative sense too, and no longer had names. All official records of them were kept by numbers. They were P followed by a number. Loew was P46. Otherwise, they conformed to prison regulations in respect to dress and deportment. The emotional atmosphere in the section was volatile—betrayal bred mistrust. There was no solidarity between the inmates. Several were kept in isolation, protected from each other.

  On his return to the prison, Loew was strip-searched and then permitted to go to the gym. He worked for two hours on the machines, pumping blood through the muscles, strengthening the tissue, eliminating bodily and mental wastes. He didn't speak to the other gym-users, having nothing to say to them. As he went through the routines he thought again about Dunlop. The guy had been upset today, stressed-out. And what did that warning stuff about going too quick mean? He assumed that Dunlop had other things to do apart from making arrangements for Kerry Loew. Had one of his cases fucked up? As he told Dunlop, it didn't build confidence.

  He showered and changed and returned to his cell. It was optional whether you ate in your cell or in the mess hall. Most of the inmates ate alone and Loew had never considered doing anything else. The food was the same as in the General Industrial Prison—monotonous, high in fat and carbohydrates, low in vitamins and fibre. Cassie used to bring him nuts, dried fruits and supplements and he ate as little of the gaol food as he could. He'd been unable to break his sugar habit, though. He liked tea and coffee strong, milky and sweet. He controlled the vice by not drinking more than three cups per day. After eating and drinking a coffee he badly wanted a cigarette. He drank water, took a vitamin C capsule from his now very low supply and waited for the craving to go as Cassie told him it would.

  'Why do you smoke?' she'd said.

  'It relaxes me.'

  'It doesn't. It takes away the tension caused by wanting a cigarette. The tension starts up about fifteen minutes after you finish a smoke. All you do by having one is control that tension—for fifteen bloody minutes! Meanwhile you're making dead sure you'll be twitching again in a quarter of an hour. Smoking does absolutely nothing for tension not related to smoking. It's a myth.'

  He hadn't liked the lecture, played dumb. 'A what?'

  'A fucking lie. A con.'

  That had hit him and he'd managed to cut down to half a packet a day. It was true that the less you smoked the less you wanted to, or needed to. He still wasn't completely convinced and went on smoking partly out of defiance, partly from fear. He didn't want to fail at anything. Not any more. Not after Cassie. But Dunlop had challenged him and that was different. What was it about that guy? He was just a copper doing a job and by Christ he'd better be good at it. And I challenged him back, didn't I?

  The tobacco craving passed and he watched the news and 'Beyond 2000' on TV. The set was a present from Cassie.

  'I've had it fixed so you can only watch the ABC, SBS and "Before Lunch".'

  Loew dead-panned. 'Okay by me.'

  Cassie grinned, 'And "LA Law".'

  'And "Neighbours".'

  'No, not "Neighbours".'

  Those were the hard times, when they were close, laughing, like ordinary people, and there was no way to take it further. He switched off the set and read, slowly and mouthing the words softly, a chapter of Fred Hollows' Autobiography. He remembered the eye doctor coming to the Bay years ago to test prisoners' vision. He remembered the smell of his pipe and the gruff voice: 'You'll do, son. You've got eyes nearly as good as a blackfellow.' No glasses for Kerry Loew and, at that time, no future—just most of the rest of the fuckin' century in the nick.

  He paced the cell, thinking, remembering. Cassie, then the deal. In that order. It had to be in that order. Before Cassie, they could've cut his balls off before he'd turn dog. But after Cassie it was all different and they'd spotted it. The approach had come when he went up before what he thought was a sentence review board. These days they were always reviewing stuff—up, down, left and right—and not a bloody thing changed. The two men sitting in the A Division office hadn't looked like the usual lawyers and pen-pushers. Jacks.

  'How'd you like to get out, Kerry?'

  'How'd you like to screw your missus, Kerry? I would. Wonder who is?'

  'You're never getting out, mate. You know that, don't you?'

  'You can grass, and do yourself some good, or not. 'Course if you don't we can always say you did. Move you to Special Purpose, put on a show. Then say it was a mistake and move you back.'

  'Who'd miss you, Kerry? Apart from . . .'

  Three or four meetings. Over and over. Carrot and stick.

  'Give it some thought, Kerry.'

  'New name, new start.'

  'Talk it over with Cassie May, son.'

  But he hadn't. Even though she'd been inside, she wouldn't understand what a man had to go through with something like this. Could he trust them? Did he have any leverage himself?

  'If you cross me up I'll tear this fuckin' place apart. I'll take ten screws with me, minimum.'

  'We know that, Kerry.'

  'The deal goes through, word for word, point by point—any ratting and people on your side get hurt.'

  'You're being smart, son.'

  And that's the way it had gone. Affidavits, statements, signatures. The move via the Strict Protection Area to the Special Purpose block and the new status, dog. The completely new identity they were promising wouldn't be such a big deal because he'd already taken on a new identity. Kerry Douglas Loew didn't mean the same things any more: didn't mean 'willing', didn't mean 'game'. Dog. And he knew what was being said about Lassie and Pal and Meaty Bites. He knew all the jokes because he'd told them himself. Well, fuck them all. What could be worse than dying in prison? What could be worse than never being with Cassie without screws and con eyes and guns and bars? Fuck them all.

  The only problem, after he'd got used to the routines of the wing and the paranoid atmosphere, was Cassie's attitude. Why had she looked like that when he told her the good news? Why had she missed the visits?

  Loew slammed his right fist into his left palm over and over until the left hand felt bruised. Notorious for his bad temper, he quickly worked himself up into a distraught state and hardly knew what he was doing. That cunt Dunlop better let him see Cassie. It was part of the deal!

  6

  It was Katarina who had got him interested in golf. She was a keen player with a low handicap and it was inevitable in their courting days that he should try his hand at it. Katarina was a schoolteacher, good at telling people what to do.

  'Flex your knees a bit.'

  'Flex?'

  'Bend them. God, you look like a chook laying. Stand your height. Stocky blokes like you shouldn't bend.'

  'I'm not stocky. I'm medium-tall.'

  'Hah. Take it back like I showed you and swing. Keep it relaxed. The club head does the work. You just guide it through while transferring your weight. Try to hit down on the ball.'

  His seven iron shot had sailed gracefully for a hundred plus metres down the centre of the fairway.

  'Jesus. Do it again.'

  'What was wrong?'

  'Just hit another one.'

  'Flex?'

  'Right.'

  He hit six balls into a close pattern, the sixth shot carried the furthest.

  'You bastard,' Katarina said. 'You've done this before.'

  He'd kissed her, there on the tee. 'Never. Watched it a bit on TV. And you're a great teacher, love.'

  Katarina had passed on her own knowledge of the elements of the game and he had absorbed them with ease. He was breaking ninety within a month and threatening to break eighty not much later. It came to him almost without effort, all except the putting.

  'You're moving your head as you make the putt.'

  'I'm not.'

  'I can bloody see it.'

  'That's funny, because I can't bloody feel it.'

  Erratic putting had kept him at the level of a capable club player. He and Katarina enjoyed golfing holidays in beach and country towns in New South Wales and interstate. They made love in a bunker at the fourteenth hole at Concord after Katarina had scored an ace. They were members at the Concord club, living in Drummoyne and trying to start a family. For a heart-in-the-mouth few weeks they thought the celebration in the bunker had done the trick, but they suffered disappointment yet again.

  The doctors could assign no discernible cause. His sperm count was normal, her tubes were clear, their blood groups were compatible, their methods and timing were exemplary. 'Psychological forces at work,' an alternative-medicine counsellor, consulted under protest by 'the male partner', had suggested.

  'The shitty work you do, in other words,' Katarina said. 'Leave the force. Do something else.'

  By this time he'd accepted the promotion and was working in the Cross, seeing the human wreckage floating by. It fascinated and repelled him. He saw the kids selling their bodies and souls. He told himself he left all the shit behind him, on the other side of the Iron Cove Bridge. He was a tough cop. 'No,' he said. 'My work's got nothing to do with it.'

  It had everything to do with the divorce. Irretrievable breakdown; assets divided; no custody at issue; Frank Anthony and Katarina Ilsa . . . decree absolute.

  Dunlop thought of Katarina as he put his clubs in the car, backed out of the garage and waited for the automatic door to close. The divorce had been rancorous and they had never met after the obligatory court appearance, although he had glimpsed her once across a city street—she was tall, still slim, blonde, striding . . . Occasionally, snippets of information had come his way; she was teaching in a private school on the North Shore and had remarried. She'd had a child. He hoped she was happy.

  He drove to the Marrickville course. The day was warm but overcast with rain threatening. He might have to settle for nine holes. The course was little used in the middle of the week and Dunlop had not much hope of finding a partner. He would have welcomed one. In the morning he had checked on the three cases he had running—a Royal Commission witness under wraps, a relocated South Australian police corruption whistle-blower and his 'suicide'—all appeared to be progressing satisfactorily. He wanted to put professional concerns out of his mind for a time before giving his full attention to the knotty problem of Kerry Loew.

  'Afternoon, Lucas. Going out? Good. Me too. Don't see you much. What're you off, these days?'

  Dunlop was in luck. Dan Simpson, the club professional, was an amiable man and an excellent instructor. He would be glad of the chance to benefit from Simpson's intimate knowledge of the course and the few tips on his game he would inevitably offer. As they walked to the first tee, Simpson told Dunlop that he was tuning up for a Pro-Am event.

  'You're not far off tournament standard yourself, Lucas,' Simpson said, 'if you could do something about your putting.'

  'Big if.' Dunlop was glad of the company but he wanted to play, not chatter.

  Simpson hit a classic drive down the middle and Dunlop hooked. Marrickville was an undemanding 3,650-metre suburban course with only a couple of water-bordered holes to seriously test the nerves. Dunlop had carded a few high seventies over the two years he had played there and seldom shot higher than eight-five. Today he played miserably, embarrassing himself and Simpson, who attempted to help but could do nothing to stop the hooks, slices, bunkered approach shots and three-putt greens.

  Mercifully, they were seldom together other than on the greens and tees. As he came blundering out of the rough or sand to join him, or stood, wondering whether to tee off with an iron or driver, Dunlop admired the pro's patience and composure.

  'Am I moving my head?' he asked, after missing an easy putt and double-bogeying the ninth.

  'I'm buggered if I know what you're doing, old son,' Simpson said. 'Could be a square ball.'

  For the last two holes Dunlop had been praying for rain to put him out of his misery, but it held off as he laboured through the back nine. Nothing improved; his club selection and execution remained bad, the only disaster he hadn't suffered was going into the water, and he was on ninety-six when they reached the eighteenth tee. Dunlop was determined to match Simpson in good humour. The hole was a bare 120 metres with small bunkers and a good, flat green—a kind conclusion for the journeyman player.

  'How many bloody times have you aced this one, Dan?'

  'A few.'

  Hitting off first, Simpson put his eight iron shot on the green, two metres from the pin.

  Dunlop teed his ball, barely glanced at the green, and swung. It was the first of the nearly fifty shots he'd hit that felt right. The ball sailed sweetly from the club, hit the green, scooted, rolled, and dropped into the cup.

  Simpson let out a whoop that attracted the attention of other players in the vicinity. Heads turned towards the eighteenth.

  'Jesus Christ, I don't believe it.' Dunlop was trembling, still holding his club. A fat drop of rain fell on his flushed face.

  Simpson wrenched the iron free and shook Dunlop's hand. 'You've got the pro as a witness, son. Aces don't come any better credentialled than that. Let me just knock that bugger in and I'll buy you a beer.'

 

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