Deal Me Out (11 page)

He nodded again and didn’t move his diaphragm.

‘You’re in with the people who’re nicking the cars?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I know who you’re talkin’ about. I’ve heard of them. But there’s a couple of … there’s people between me and them, like.’

‘What were you supposed to do here?’

‘Get you to tell me where the tapes and the film was.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘That’s all I bloody know—tape of a voice on the phone and a fuckin’ film.’

‘What sort of film?’

‘I know what’s on it, that’s all. There’s a bloke gettin’ into a car and drivin’ away. That’s all.’

‘And I’m supposed to have these things?’

His bitter look got more bitter, and I moved the gun a fraction to remind him who held the cards.

‘’s right. Yeah.’

‘Next question—who’s the man you go through? Don’t worry about him going through someone else.’

He shook his head. Although he was over thirty, some of the acne scars had an angry recent look as if the condition was occasionally still active. ‘No way. I’m a dead man if I open me mouth on that.’

‘You could be dead if you don’t, or worse.’

He looked at me. Now that he’d recovered from his belting and fright he looked intelligent under the anger, intelligent and maybe capable of judgement.

‘Bullshit. You won’t do a thing. I’m going.’

He lifted the locking button, opened the door and slipped out. Moving slowly away he stuffed his shirt back into his pants, hunched his shoulders and walked. He’d judged me accurately; I watched him go—moving loosely, indifferently, almost strolling and without a suggestion of a backward look.

He looked better than I felt. The adrenalin rush had stopped, leaving me feeling drained and feeble. It was something they warned us about in Malaya and something well-known to the snipers. More men died in the post-battle, let-down period than in the heat of the fight. I started the car and warmed the motor properly; I put the gun on the seat and wound down both front windows for better visibility. Sensible precautions against my attackers having another go, but what I really wanted was a quiet drive home and a steadying drink.

The quiet drive I got, but not the drink because every bottle in the place had been smashed and the wine cask had had a carving knife put through it. The mess upstairs included a cover ripped from my foam mattress, lifted carpets and the overturning of everything that had stood on legs. Books and papers were torn and scattered around and the contents of drawers and cupboards had been emptied out and sorted through with a claw hammer. The technique had been much the same as at Mountain’s;—more of a rummage than a search, more of a destructive rampage than a teasing out of hiding places. The work on the bottles and cask was pure malice, reaction to the inevitable failure of the visitation.

I started cleaning up in a haphazard fashion and my mind ran on the obvious track until I came across two
sound cassettes that had had their tapes drawn out and cut and my three video cassettes that had been pulverised by a hammer. I mused on taped telephone voices and film of a man driving away in a car. Secret service, undercover stuff. I left the mess and made instant coffee as an aid to thought.

He wouldn’t tape his instructions, film the pick-up and use the material to put pressure on the firm, would he? Then I remembered the conversation Erica Fong and I had had about Mountain and I grabbed the phone which my visitors had left intact. There was no answer at Mountain’s number or at the one listed for E. Fong in Bondi Junction. Centennial Park, who are they kidding? The phone book tells it like it is. I stood in the mess and heard the phone ring ten times. Maybe she’d taken Max for a walk in the park and had got into a deep and meaningful with Patrick White.

I hung up wishing for about the hundredth time that I could be dealt out of this game. I didn’t like my cards and I didn’t like Mountain. Erica would be better off without him. Maybe I could tackle the job for Terry Reeves in another way. Then I saw something on the floor I hadn’t seen before. Helen had given me a copy of
The Macquarie Dictionary
to resolve our frequent disputes about spellings and pronunciations. The book had been dismembered; pages had been torn out and crumpled and the covers had been ripped from the broken binding. That made it more personal.

I kept ringing Erica as I finished tidying up and throwing things away. I told myself the place had been getting too cluttered anyway. Force of habit took me out to the letterbox which is hidden in a place in a hedge by the front gate known only to the postman and me. I took the priority-paid envelope out and went back into the house, wondering if the ransackers had found the miniature bottles of Jameson’s Irish whisky Cy Sackville had given me, souvenir of a legal conference in Dublin. They hadn’t;
the little bottles nestled behind the biscuit tin that hadn’t had any biscuits in it since Hilde left. I got the foil top off and poured the small measure over a couple of ice cubes and silently toasted my Irish ancestors.

The writing on the envelope was unfamiliar. I thumbnailed it open and took out a couple of photocopy pages and a sheet of tinted, lined notepaper. In a round, young hand Erica Fong had written:

Mountain’s two quarto pages of single-spaced notes were perhaps unique in psychological literature. They took the form of an account of the analytical session from the patient’s point of view and included phrases like, ‘Dr Holmes appeared ill at ease’ and ‘Holmes has built a house of fantasy upon foundations of illusion.’ I put the notes aside for closer study later and picked up the other sheets which were copies of both sides of a postcard.

The picture showed a large city square at night. The roads were busy and the pavement cafes were thronged. On a building more or less centred in the picture, the words ‘Hotel des Anges’ were mounted in neon. The card was undated and addressed to Erica Fong. It read:

The ‘B’ was written in the large sloping hand of the notes, but the message on the card was typewritten. I took the photocopied page across to a lamp and studied it under light. There was a slight line around the text that didn’t seem to be part of the card. Conclusion: the message had been typed on a piece of paper which had been stuck onto the card. I didn’t have the faintest idea what this piece of deduction meant, but I was pleased to have worked something out. I was also glad that Erica Fong wasn’t hanging around Sydney somewhere to be visited by people with hammers looking for tapes and films.

I sipped the Jameson’s and tried to recall what I knew about Nice. Not much. Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in
To Catch a Thief;
Graham Greene wrote about a corrupt mayor; nice beach, they say, and someone named a biscuit after the place. I hadn’t eaten for some hours and I was feeling the effects of the Jameson’s just a little; that was alright with me. I opened the other bottle to feel the effects some more; there’s more in those titchy bottles than you think. What else did I have to do? I was sitting in my ransacked house waiting for a Chinese girl to tell me what she’d found out in Nice.
Bizarre, Hardy,
I thought.
Bizarre.
Then the phone rang.

‘Cliff Jameson,’ I said.

‘Oh, God, Cliff. It’s Helen. Are you drunk?’

‘No.’

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘What do you mean, nowhere? I’ve been phoning for a day.’

‘I mean nowhere—I went to Melbourne.’

‘Oh, sorry. Are you alright? I’ve been missing you.’

‘Me too. You, I mean. D’you like polygamy?’

There was a pause and then her voice contained a note of caution. ‘It’s all right, it’s better than celibacy. You’re not being celibate, are you?’

I grunted. ‘It’s been a funny day. I’ve won a fight and
now I have to clean up my house.’

‘I’m glad you won the fight. Well, I just wanted to hear your voice. I’m fine of course, thanks for asking.’

‘I’m sorry, love. I’m in the middle of a shitty case. I can’t see the tunnel, let alone the bloody light. Have you ever been to Nice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nice?’

‘Don’t. That joke is prehistoric. Yes, it’s great—good beach, you’d love it. Are we going?’

‘Maybe. You know a big square there, lots of traffic?’

‘Place Massena it sounds like. What’s all this about?’

‘I wish I knew. How’s the farm and the radio station and the winery and the daughter?’

‘Don’t be bitchy, Cliff. I can’t help it if your life’s an empty shell without me.’

‘I miss you, that’s all. First month’s the worst. By the fifth month Helen’ll be just something to go with Troy.’

‘Huh. What’ve you been reading?’

‘The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People.’

‘I’ve read that. Who d’you like best?’

‘Bertrand Russell.’

‘Why?’

‘I like him best at everything. Who’s yours?’

‘Guess.’

I guessed and didn’t get it right and we laughed. It went on like that for a while until she was so real to me again that I felt I could reach out and touch her. It was a good feeling. I had nothing but good feelings about Helen Broadway. I wondered how good old Mike and the kid would feel about a three month rotation.

I
SPENT
the rest of the afternoon re-stocking the fridge with fluids and solids. I bought some glasses and coffee mugs to replace the broken ones. I scotch-taped some books together and tidied up papers. The cat came home, got fed and went off again. I was moping and I knew it. I sat down with a pen and pad and some wine and tried to do some constructive thinking.

The results didn’t justify the amount of wine consumed. My brain felt slow and tired as if something connected with the Bill Mountain affair impeded its proper engagement. My thoughts kept drifting off onto other subjects, like Nice, the Melbourne gymnasium, Helen Broadway’s nose. In the end, after writing down the names of all the people so far involved and connecting some of them with arrows and covering a lot of paper with question marks, I gave it up. I decided to sleep on it, which sometimes brings results.

In the morning I had my results. Three thoughts had taken form: one, I could locate Mountain’s psychiatrist, Dr Holmes, and pump him; two, I could ask around about the men who’d attacked me in the car park and try to find out who they worked for; three, I needed to find a spa and sauna in Sydney—beating two men in unarmed combat had made me a convert.

Dr John Holmes’ rooms in Woollahra were in a road that seemed to be shooting for the ‘most leafy stretch in Sydney’ award. It was all high brick fences with overhanging trees; trees along the footpath, trees on a central strip
dividing the wide road, trees waving up around the tops of the lofty houses. It cost big money to get a lot of leaves to rake in this neighbourhood, and Holmes had to be coining it—his brick fence was one of the highest and his trees were among the leafiest.

I parked outside Holmes’ place under a plane tree and reflected on how very differently people go about their business. I was here two days after I’d had the idea to come. Me, you can just ring up, and like as not you can come over and see me or I’ll come to you. Or, if you happen to be in St Peter’s Lane, you can walk through the tattoo parlour, romp up the stairs and knock on the door. Not so with Dr Holmes. I’d been given fifteen minutes. There were no free evenings, no lunches, no half-hour before the busy day began. It sounded obsessive to me. I imagined a pale, pudgy creature, eyes luminously intelligent with legs ready to drop off from disuse.

I pushed open the iron gate in the high fence and walked up the leaf-strewn path to the front door. The house was a wide, towering affair, built of sandstone blocks one size down from those used in the pyramids at Giza. It had gracious lines—bay windows, and a wide, bull-nosed verandah over an ornately tiled surface that swept away around both sides of the house.

The doorbell was answered by a tall, slim woman wearing a white silk shirt and jodhpurs. She had a mane of blonde hair and high, expensive-looking cheekbones. Her blue eyes were elaborately made up with long dark lashes that fluttered like car yard bunting.

‘Mr … ?’ she said.

‘Hardy.’

‘Oh good. I think he’s ready to see you. I’m going riding.’

‘Not yachting?’

‘A joke. I don’t like jokes. D’you think I look right?’

She backed off; I stepped after her into an entrance hall big enough to canter horses in. She rotated slowly in front of a three metre square mirror.

‘Umm,’ she said. She seemed to have forgotten who I was, in the ecstasy of self-admiration.

‘Hardy. To see Dr Holmes.’

‘Oh, yes. You go up the stairs and it’s the first door on the right or left. I can never remember which but you’ll be all right because there aren’t any doors on the side it’s not on. ‘kay?’

‘’kay,’ I said.’

I went up a few stairs and turned back to look at her. She was standing by the door peering out through the peep hole.

The stairs were covered in deep blue carpet and the banister rail was polished, old and grooved and a pleasure to lay your hand on. Like all the best staircases it had two flights with a flat central section at the turn—on these it was about the size of a boxing ring. The door was on the right if you were going up but on the left if you were going down—perhaps that was what had confused the lady in the jodhpurs. I knocked on the door and went inside when a deep, pulsating voice told me to.

The man standing behind the big desk was forty plus, six feet tall with bushy dark hair and a fairways and nineteenth hole complexion. His bulky, still spreading body, displayed in a blue and white striped shirt and grey trousers, owed more to the nineteenth hole than the fairways. He reached across the desk and we shook somewhere in the middle of the vast polished expanse. Strong grip.