Heroin Annie (28 page)

Holt had used Raymond Evans' agency to do the basic digging on Diane, her mother and Harvey, and I was impressed with the results. We had a straight teenager with the usual tastes and habits and no shadows, until the six months of her mother's illness came along. Raymond's report said: ‘Ms Holt appears to have moved into a kind of top gear when she learned of her mother's cancer. By all reports she worked extremely hard at her studies and alternated periods of intense nursing with heavy socialising. Drink & drugs—moderate & experimental; sex probable (see Harvey, V.); politics—radical; criminality—negative.'

Harvey had taken a BA in history and psychology and an MA in sociology at the University of Sydney. He'd done his course work for his Stanford PhD on ‘Advertising, the media and opinion formation in Australia' and when he carried Di Holt's suitcase at Mascot he was going back to write up his fieldwork for the dissertation. Raymond reported that Harvey had met Diane Holt when he was interviewing the father of one of her schoolfriends who owned an advertising agency.

I tapped the papers and forced down some more beer. ‘This is good work', I said. ‘But I think you might need a California man on it now.'

‘Tried that', Holt said. ‘San Francisco private eye found out Harvey had dropped out of Stanford. Big deal. Said he couldn't find Australians, charged me high.'

‘Jesus. Did he call himself a private eye?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Must be the fog. Still …'

He broke in impatiently. ‘I'm a Stanford man myself, got a friend on the faculty there. He tells me this Harvey has gone political—makes speeches on the campus time to time.'

‘Radical politics', I said tapping the papers again.

‘Yeah, beats me. I just figure it might be best for an Aussie to talk to them and find out what the hell's going on.'

‘Why didn't Raymond handle it?'

‘He recommended you.'

And that was how I came to be on Flight 532 out of Sydney for San Francisco via Honolulu. I had a visa which would allow me to go in and out of the US as often as I liked for the next five years. It sounded like a threat. I watched ‘Chariots of Fire' for the third time and admired the way they gave you two of the cute little bottles when you ordered a gin and tonic. I didn't eat any of the food which was all the colour of raw liver. I read
The White Hotel
on the second leg of the flight, and couldn't sleep afterwards.

It was raining in San Francisco and the cable cars were out of operation being overhauled, but it was Sunday and a lot of the city was working, and that was novel. I checked into a Fisherman's Wharf motel and caught up on some of the lost sleep. After a shave and shower I went out and bought some of the Gallo chablis I'd been reading about for years in American novels. I also bought a turkey and avocado sandwich big enough to choke Phar Lap and went back to the motel to review the case. The wine was fine, a bit fruity; the label said it was 12 per cent alcohol and I confirmed that with a few solid belts. The sandwich was excellent—survival in these foreign parts was assured. The thinking didn't take long; the only lead I had was to Stanford University in Palo Alto. Twelve per cent is an assertive wine—I had another nap.

It was well into Monday when I presented my international driving permit and American Express card at Hertz and took possession of a red Pinto. The freeway to Palo Alto wasn't any worse than the Sydney versions and the low, exhaust-blasted structures along the road looked like Haberfield with a dash of Barcelona. Since the energy crisis hit they've dropped the speed limit and everyone drives slowly to save petrol. They were forgiving about my hesitations and sudden surges of doubt about the automatic transmission and which side of the road to travel on.

I put on dark sunglasses and blinked a lot and told myself that Palo Alto with its gum trees and ordered streets was nothing like Canberra. I drove cautiously onto the Stanford campus, learning that here joggers and cyclists rule.

At Students' Records a bored woman with a lot of gold chains round her neck told me that Vin Harvey had not enrolled for the new quarter. When I asked why not, she got sly and started demanding ID. I left after getting a squint at the address on the VDT screen—72 Manzanita Park. I located it on a campus map and walked there dodging the bikes. It was an eye-opener amidst the affluence. Low cost student housing covering an acre or so. The buildings, box-like, pale cream corrugated iron jobs were like beached whales. I felt a wall and judged it to be more tin than iron. The layout reminded me of the army and the atmosphere reminded me of caravan parks at home where I'd gone looking for people who couldn't afford to hide anywhere else.

Number 72 was no different from the others except that it had a poster on the outside advertising the delights of the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Pasted to the rippled surface the picture of the boardwalk and the sea had a disjointed, chaotic look. There was also a poster for a recent on-campus Grateful Dead concert, but there were plenty of those around.

A tall, stringy black youth answered my knock. He wore a light grey track suit and sneakers and he bounced just standing there in the doorway.

‘I, ah, was hoping you might know something about Vincent Harvey.'

‘Who was hoping?'

‘Name's Hardy, from Australia.' I pulled out the investigator's licence and was just balanced and quick enough to avoid the kick he aimed at my head. I stepped back and he came after me, leaping with the hands out ready to smash me down. The leap took him through the doorway but left him a bit close to the wall; I used the space I had to push him into it, hard. He hadn't learned coming-off-walls and I showed him lesson one which is to avoid going-into-same-wall-again. Lesson two is much the same and it can go on until someone gets tired. He did.

‘All right', he gasped, ‘you're bruising me'.

‘Truce', I said. ‘Parley.'

‘Okay.' He got to his feet and I watched all of him carefully.

‘Why did you do that?'

‘For practice. You guys are supposed to be on guard at all times aren't you? It's hard to find anyone on guard.'

‘Shit.' I stuffed my hands down tight into the pockets of my jeans. ‘I am officially off guard—all right?'

‘Sure. You're good man, what was that you wanted to know?'

‘About Vin, my compatriot.'

He nodded and ushered me straight into a room which was like a good-sized motel room, except that it had a bookcase, which I've never seen in a motel.

‘Beer?' He bent to the door of a compact fridge which fitted in between the bookcase and the stereo system.

‘Thanks.' he handed me a can which had more pictures on it than a Walton's catalogue. Coors didn't seem like much of a name for a beer, but it was good. He watched me as I took the first sip.

‘Terrific', I said.

‘That's what Vin thought.'

‘Good man is he?'

‘Was.'

‘And you are …?'

‘Percy Holmes.' He flexed a bicep and jutted his jaw. ‘More Holmes than Percy, if you take my meaning.'

‘I do. You know Vin well?'

He scratched his chin and stayed in the squatting position, giving the thighs a workout. ‘Just because you whipped me doesn't mean I'll spill my guts to you. What's the problem?'

‘I'm not sure.' I drank some more of the beer and decided it was
very
good. ‘Diane Holt's father hired me to find her. You know her?'

He nodded. ‘Sure, a young fox. She was around when Vin came back and pulled outa here. And gave up beer. He was different, like weird.'

I'd seen a photograph of Harvey, courtesy of Raymond Evans. He had dark hair, a short beard and what you might call brooding eyes, but he didn't look weird.

‘This is nothing heavy', I said. I waved the nearly empty beer can and tried a smile. ‘Di's dad seems like a man of the world to me, know what I mean?'

His dark brown brow furrowed. ‘No', he said.

‘I want to find out if the girl's okay and what's happening. I won't touch Vin or even speak to him in a loud voice unless he's making her do what she doesn't want to do.'

He seemed to find that very funny. He let out a short laugh and then a longer one. He reached into the fridge, got out two cans of Coors, tossed one to me and popped the other himself.

‘You got it round the wrong way man. That Di, she's got him here.' He gripped his crotch.

We both drank some beer and I started to put together an easy scenario for myself: Australian-raised girl with fantasies about America grabs the first chance she gets to take the trip, rages for a while, gets sick of it and is happy to come back to good old Sydney University with dinkum detective. Then he had to go and complicate it.

‘She wanted to go to Santa Cruz', Holmes said. ‘That was the place for her, “dreamland”, she called it. They had the biggest fight right here.'

‘Santa Cruz—what's that?'

‘UC campus—south of here, funky place.'

‘Harvey can't transfer his PhD there can he?'

He shook his head. ‘No way. Look, I roomed a while with Vin, he's okay. You sure that's all straight—just findin' the chick and all?'

‘Yes.' I finished the beer to prove it.

‘Okay. Vin, he's through with the PhD, he says. He says it's meaningless, I'm not sure why. He's pretty freaked out, that's why he put Santa Cruz down so hard. A cop-out he says. He's into, like anarchy, you know? And the chick wants to hang out in Santa Cruz, shit.'

He seemed to remember that he wasn't exercising anything at the moment while sitting on the floor. He did some squats, it was time to go before he started shadow-boxing in the confined space.

‘So where did they go?' I said.

‘San Francisco—where else?'

‘Driving what, Percy? Living where?'

He grinned. ‘Drives a Volkswagen van. Ah'm sorry suh, ah don' know the number.'

‘Okay, okay, sorry. Do you happen to know where he lives in San Francisco, Mr Holmes?'

‘No, Mr Hardy, I don't; but you're in luck, he's going to be right here tonight.' He got up and rummaged among papers on top of the bookcase. He handed me a roughly printed notice which said that Harvey would be giving a lecture entitled ‘Owning the Air' on the subject of the media and politics. The lecture was sponsored by the Stanford Committee for Responsible Social Science and was scheduled for that evening at eight p.m.

‘Will you be there?'

‘Not me. I'll be playing basketball.'

‘Are you tall enough for basketball?'

‘No, I play for fun.'

I drove back to Palo Alto and found a place called a Creamery in which you could eat and drink and read. I ate a salad, drank a beer and read the
San Francisco Chronicle
. The food and drink were better than the paper but I did learn that Michael Spinks was defending his cruiserweight title against nobody that afternoon on TV. I asked the kid behind the counter if I could watch it and he nodded and turned on the set mounted high on the wall.

‘Who's Michael Spinks?' he said.

‘Brother of Leon.'

I let him bring me another beer while I watched the fight. The beer was fine but Spinks wasn't so good. His opponent was a dark, chunky guy who looked like a blown-up middleweight and Spinks took about three rounds longer than he should to put him away.

I did the crossword in the paper, had another beer, walked around for a while and filled up with gas. I drove very cautiously; all the cops I'd seen so far wore black uniforms with big guns tucked up high, wicked-looked nightsticks and discontented expressions. Cops have a way of spotting men who are in a similar line of work, and of being nasty to them. I wasn't licenced to blow my nose in California and I knew what one of those nightsticks in sweaty hands could do to a sensitive man like me.

I gave a boy and his girlfriend a ride to the campus because they looked so forlorn walking. Everyone else was in a car or on a ten-speed cycle. I asked the kid if he was going to the media lecture.

‘Naw', he said.

‘Freaks', the girl said.

A campus patrol car came alongside and the boy waved insolently at the driver. I swore silently at him but the cop just gunned his motor and cruised past.

‘Pigs', the girl said. I wondered if they limited themselves to one-word statements. I dropped them near one of the student dormitories; the boy waved, he, was a good waver; the girl said ‘Thanks'.

I was a bit late finding the lecture room and I wasn't ready for Vin Harvey. Evans' photograph was the sort that would let you recognise someone in the street and not much more. Harvey appeared a dark-haired young man with a heavyish face and a short beard; his eyes were said to be blue and his build was said to be light, but all that did was distinguish him from brown-eyed truck drivers. The man addressing the crowd in the room might have been dark with blue eyes and slight build, but why hadn't anyone said anything about charisma? He had it. He was tall unless he was standing on a high box and his beard-framed face didn't look heavy.

He worked at talking—his voice was pleasing with a mid-Pacific accent and he moved his shoulders a little for emphasis. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt and his arms and hands moved like an orchestra conductor's. I took a seat up at the back of the steeply sloped room and listened.

‘They are not faceless', Harvey said, ‘never think that. You can see their faces in the business magazines and newspapers they own. Their faces are on the screens, coming at you from the TV stations they own. Then there are the faces of the men and women they own—the lawyers, politicians and newsreaders.' He suddenly stood quite still and the movement dramatically underlined his words. ‘But more important than the faces are the words.' His voice went a bit deeper as if concern were forcing it down. ‘Last year, there was a meeting. It was held in Sydney, Australia. All the media corporations had representatives there, the political people, a few of the union people. You'd recognise some of the names if I mentioned them. For public consumption the meeting was to organise aid for the under-privileged of the Pacific. That's a hell of a lot of people and for all I know they might get some water to villages in the Philippines. But the real talks, the ones the journalists didn't get in on, weren't about water—they were about direct access to your minds.'