Bad Debts by Peter Temple. Meet Jack Irish, criminal lawyer, debt collector, football lover, turf watcher, trainee cabinet maker, and the best Australian crime character we've seen in years. When Jack receives a puzzling message from a jailed ex-client, he's too deep in misery over Fitzroy's latest loss to take much notice. Next thing Jack knows, the ex-client's dead and he's been drawn into a life-threatening investigation involving high level corruption, dark sexual secrets, chonky property deals, and murder. With Hitman after him, shady ex-policeman at every turn, and the body count rising, Jack needs to find out what's going on and fast. Chapter one Bad Debts I found Edward Dollery, age forty seven, defrocked accountant, big spender and dishonest person, living in a house rented to the name of Carol Pick. It was in a new brick veneer suburb built on cow pasture east of the city, one of those strangely silent developments where the average age is twelve, and you can feel the pressure of mortgages on your skin. Eddie Dollery's skin wasn't looking good. He'd cut himself several times shaving, and each Nick was wearing a little red scented rosette of toilet paper. The rest of Eddie, short, bloated, was wearing yesterday's super fine cotton business shirt, striped, and scarlet pajama pants, silk. The overall effect was not fetching. Yes, he said in the clipped tone of a man interrupted while on the line to Tokyo or Zurich or Milan. He had both hands behind his back, apparently holding up his pants. Marinara, right? I said, pointing to a small piece of hardened food attached to the pocket of his shirt. Eddie Dollery looked at my finger, and he looked in my eyes and he knew. A small greyish probe of tongue came out to inspect his upper lip, disapproved, and withdrew. Come in, he said in a less commanding tone. He took a step backwards. His right hand came around from behind his back and pointed a small pistol at my fly. Come in or I'll shoot your balls off. I looked at the pistol with concern. It had a distinctly Albanian cast to it. These things go off for motives of their own. Mr Sabatini, I said. You're Michael Sabatini. I'm only here about your credit card payment. Inside, he said, wagging the firearm. He backed in, I followed. We went through a barren hallway into a sitting room containing pastel coloured leather furniture of the kind that appears to have been squashed. Eddie stopped in the middle of the room, I stopped, we looked at each other. I said, Mr Sabatini, it's only money. You're pointing a gun at a debt collector from an agency. You can go to jail for that. If it's not convenient to discuss new arrangements for repayments now, I'm happy to tell my agency that. Eddie shook his head slowly. How'd you find me? he said. I blinked at him. Find you? We've got your address, Mr Sabatini. We send you accounts here. The company sends you accounts here. Eddie moved aside a big piece of hair to scratch his scalp, revealing a small plantation of transplanted hairs. I've got to lock you up, he said. Put your hands on your head. I complied. Eddie got around behind me and said straight ahead, march. He kept his distance. He was a good meter and a half behind me when I went through the doorway into the kitchen. There were about a dozen empty champagne bottles on various surfaces around the room. Perrier Jouet, Moet de Chandon, Paul Roger, Krug. No brand loyalty here. No concern for the country's balance of payments. The one on the counter to my right was Piper. When Eddie came into the doorway, the Piper bottle swung backhand, caught him on the jawbone. The Albanian time bomb in his hand went off, no more than a door slam, the slug going Christ knows where. Eddie dropped the gun to nurse his face. I pulled him into the room by his shirt, spun him around and kicked him in the back of the right knee with an instep while wrenching him backwards by his hair. He hit the ground hard. I was about to give him a kick when a semblance of calm descended upon me. I spared him the grace note. Eddie was moaning a great deal, but he wasn't going to die from the impact of the piper. I dragged him off by the heels and locked him in the lavatory along the passage. Mate, he said in a thick voice from behind the door, mate, what's your name? I said, Mr Dollery, that was a very silly thing to do. Where's the money? Mate, mate, just hold it, just hop one second. The freezer had been stocked for a two or three week stay, but all the recent catering had been by Colonel Sanders, MacDonald's, and Diladino. Dessert was from Columbia. There were dirty shirts and underpants all over the main bedroom and its bathroom. The mirror fronted wall of cupboards held three suits, two tweety sports jackets and several pairs of trousers on one side. On the other hung a nurse's uniform, Salvation Army Sally's uniform, a meter maid uniform, and what appeared to be the parade dress of a female officer from the Waffen SS. With these went black underwear, some of it leather, and red suspender belts. My respect for Mrs. Pick, Florist and signatory of the house's lease, deepened. By all accounts she had away with flowers too. I was passing the laboratory on my way back from looking over the laundry when Eddie Dollery said, Listen, mate, you want to be rich? He had excellent hearing. I stopped. Mr. Dollery, I said, meeting people like you is riches enough for me. Cut that smart shit. Are you gonna do it? Do what? Knock me. His was not a proper vocabulary for someone who had been an accountant. Don't be paranoid, I said. It's that marching powder you're putting up your nose. Oh Jesus, said Eddie. Give me a chance, will you? I went into the sitting room and telephoned Belvedere Investments, my temporary employer. Mr Wooten would return my call, said Mrs. Davenport. She'd had twenty years as the receptionist for a specialist in sexually transmitted diseases before joining Wooten. Jade Hoover had fewer secrets. I looked around some more while I waited. Then I sat down next to the phone and studied what I could see of Mowbury Court. Nothing moved except a curtain in the house opposite, a building so sterile and without surroundings so perfectly tended that it could have been the tomb of the unknown suburbanites. The phone rang. Jack, my boy. Good news, I hope. Speak freely, old sausage. Wooten was in the pub. I said Dollary thinks I'm here to kill him. Got him, have you? Bloody spot on. I expect to be warned about the armed and desperate Cyril. There'll be an extra five per cent deduction to cover my shock and horror at having a firearm pointed at me. Wooten laughed his snorting laugh. Listen, Jack, Eddie's a disloyal little bugger with a lot of bad habits, but he wouldn't actually harm anyone. People like that think the worst about everything. It's the guilt, and eating icing sugar with their noses. What's on the premises? Ladies' uniforms, I said. Wooten laughed again. That's one of the habits. He's got the stuff on him, hasn't he? It was starting to rain on Mabaly Court. Across the road an impossibly white cat had appeared on the porch of the tomb. On my way out I stopped to speak to Eddie. You can't help admiring a man who can get the local florist to dress up like Isla Cooch's old uniform over crutchless leather panties. Mr Dollery, I said outside the laboratory, you're going to have to be more cooperative with people whose money you have stolen. Pointing a firearm at their representatives is not the way. Eddie said, Listen, listen, don't go. Give me the gun back and I'll tell you where to find ten grand. Go round the back and put the gun through the window. Ten grand notes, old notes. I know where to find ten grand, I said. Everybody keeps ten grand in the dishwasher, and everybody keeps seventy grand in the air conditioner. Wooton reckons you're short twenty. I'm pushing a receipt for eighty grand and a pen under the door. I want you to sign it. There was a moment's silence. Mate, Eddie said, every cent. Tell him every cent. You tell him. Just sign, I said. The receipt came back signed. The pen, please? The pen appeared. Thank you. Goodbye, Mr. Dollery. Eddie was shouting something when I closed the front door, but he'd stopped by the time I reached the car. Across the road the white cat was watching. I drove out of Mabalee Court. Two hours later, I was at Packenham Racecourse watching a horse called New Nineveh run seventh in a maiden. Next day I went to Sydney to talk to a possible witness to a near fatal dispute in the car park of the Melton shopping centre. It was supposed to be a six hour quickie. It took two days, and a man hit me on the upper left arm with a full swing of a baseball bat. It was an aluminium baseball bat made in Japan. This would never have happened in the old days. He would have hit me with a Stuart Surridge cricket bat with black insulation tape around the middle. Except in the old days, I didn't do this kind of work.