by Peter Corris
The Washington Club
( Cliff Hardy - 19 )
Peter Corris
Peter Corris
The Washington Club
1
In our twenty-year-plus relationship, there were only two reasons why my lawyer, Cy Sackville, ever called me. One was to remind me that I owed him money. In my time as a private detective Cy had bailed me out of gaol, headed off suits for assault, threatened welshing clients with litigation and performed other services. He didn’t need the money and I usually didn’t have it, but Cy said the reminder kept us on a professional footing. The other reason was to invite me to play squash. I hate squash, play it like tennis and mostly lose, even to Cy who is no athletic marvel. He’s had the lessons though, has all the gear and gets lots of practice. He enjoys winning and I see losing as like paying interest on the debt. A twenty-year pattern is pretty fixed but patterns can be broken.
‘I want to hire you, Cliff,’ Cy said.
‘I still owe you money.’
‘This could clear it and then some.’ Cy did his Masters at the University of Chicago and has resolutely hung on to the Americanisms he picked up in his days as a brilliant student. Some, like ‘cool’, meaning uncomplicated, have gone in and out of fashion since he graduated.
I was interested. Getting out of debt is almost as interesting as actually making money. And if I was out of debt I could refuse some squash invitations, or even try harder to win. And working for Cy would certainly mean doing something legal in both senses. Cy is too smart to need to be dodgy.
‘I guess I could fit you in,’ I said.
I could hear Cy’s snort of amusement over the line. ‘I know you’re snowed under with big cases, but if you could get along here at two this afternoon I’d be most terribly grateful.’
‘Give me a taste.’
‘I’m representing Claudia Fleischman.’
‘Is that good?’
‘I suppose in your usual ignorant fashion you haven’t been reading the papers.’
‘Not true. I read that Sampras beat Stich in straights in Munich.’
‘So one millionaire pops it over the net a few more times than another millionaire. Who cares? Claudia Fleischman…’
‘I know who she is, Cy. I was having a lend of you. You’re not exposed to enough irony in your trade. You’re rusty, if you get the pun.’
Cy groaned. ‘I wish I hadn’t heard any of that. See you at two, Cliff. Don’t be late.’
Claudia Fleischman was accused of murdering her husband. Julius Fleischman was a mysterious figure, the only absolutely clear thing about him being that he was very rich. Some newspaper accounts had him as English, others as South African. I seemed to remember that there was dispute as to whether he had become a naturalised Australian. He had a big house in Vaucluse and a slightly smaller one with a lot of land around it at Kiama.
His yacht was one of the biggest and best. Among his other toys were a few racehorses, a Lear jet and a vintage Rolls-Royce said to be worth a million dollars. It might as well have been a 1956 Volkswagen for all the good it was to him now. Three months back Fleischman had been shot to death in his bedroom.. I’d followed the case in a desultory fashion. At first there were ‘no suspects’, then ‘investigations were continuing’ and finally Claudia Fleischman, along with one Anton Van Kep, was up for committal, charged with murder. Motive obvious-the dough. Means, well, Van Kep was the means and if a wife doesn’t have an opportunity to murder a man the law doesn’t know who does. Almost nothing was on the record as yet. To judge from a press photo that was published in defiance of the ban, Claudia Fleischman was a spectacularly attractive woman-thirtyish, tall, fashionably slender, dark. Journalists speculated circumspectly about a love triangle, about a purely commercial hit, about a bungled attempt at intimidation. They didn’t know and the public didn’t know.
Only the cops and lawyers knew anything solid and I was about to join their exalted company. I had to admit that I was intrigued. Summons-serving, bodyguarding and money-minding are all very well and pay the bills, but there’s bugger-all about them that’s ‘investigative’ and it was primarily my snoopiness that had got me into the business in the first place. My ex-wife said that I had no respect for people’s privacy and I’m afraid she was right. My bookshelves gave me away- The Diary of Pete Seeger, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, that sort of thing, took up a fair bit of space. I had the paperback of the letters of Paddy White all ready to go. How the old bastard would have despised Julius who, so far as I knew, had never read a book, looked at a painting or been to a play in his life.
It was close to midday when Cy called and almost one o’clock when I finished musing about Fleischman, money, life and death. I had a few small things on my plate, nothing that couldn’t be delayed for something more interesting. I ate lunch at my desk-three bananas and a bigger-than-standard glass of wine. Since Glen Withers left me to marry another cop, I’ve found it hard to think of meals as anything other than necessary fuel. The fruit shop in Glebe Point Road has seductive bananas the year round and they’d become my staple food-tasty, easy on the clackers, full of goodness and no plate or cutlery needed. I’d discovered that bananas don’t go really well with any kind of alcohol and that was a plus. Nourishing food that kept my grog consumption down had to be a good thing. I’d even thought of doing the book- A Pi’s Balanced Diet, eight bananas and eight glasses of red wine per diem.
I wandered down William Street and took in a little slice of Hyde Park on my way to Cy’s office in Martin Place. People occupy the park in numbers unless it’s pissing down rain. This December day was fine, a bit muggy-shirt sleeves and drill trousers weather for me, no jacket. I wondered if any of the people lunching on the grass, strolling about or hurrying through were millionaires or murderers. I was pleased with the speculation-it showed I was getting involved and using my imagination. When I’m working on a case and no bizarre ideas or unlikely suspicions enter my head it means I’m not properly wired into it.
Cy’s office is everything it should be- well-appointed but not opulent, suggesting competence rather than ostentation, effective service rather than massive fees, but with those professional touches that showed you why you needed him probably more than he needed you. His secretary hadn’t changed in twenty-plus years. Miss Mudlark, I called her to myself, because she always wore brown. She was a tall, rather angularly built woman, wearing a beige blouse and loose dark brown pants, high heels. Her hair and eyes were brown and I bet she took her coffee with a dash of milk. Her name was Janine. She knew how matters stood between me and Cy and she was tolerant. Our communications were almost entirely banter.
‘Mr Sackville is expecting you, Mr Hardy. Go right in.’
‘Thanks, Janine. Nice outfit.’
‘You always say that.’
‘It always is. Is she in there?’
‘Yes. Try to stay on your feet.’
I knocked and entered in what I hoped was a smooth, confident sweep. Cy was sitting behind his desk and stayed there. A woman was in a chair slightly to his side; not exactly where you’d expect a lawyer’s client to be but not in his lap either. She stayed seated too. That made me, at six feet and half an inch, the tallest thing in the room, but a long way from the most powerful.
Cy checked his watch. A reflex action. I’d done the same a few minutes earlier and ensured that I was on time.
‘Cliff Hardy, Mrs Fleischman,’ Cy said. ‘Claudia, this is the man I spoke to you about.’
She turned her head slightly to look up at me and I suddenly understood what Janine the Mudlark meant. This was a woman to melt your bones. She was nothing like beautiful and much, much more than that. Her dark hair was frizzy and her nose was big, l
ike her mouth. Her eyes had a strange slant and she was slightly buck-toothed. The effect was devastating and utterly unlike the newspaper photographs-better.
She said my name and I muttered hers out of a dry throat. Cy pointed to a chair that more or less put his desk between me and Mrs Fleischman. Good thing too, if I was to do any thinking. I sat down and tried not to let the flash I’d caught of her long legs under a short white dress activate any free-range hormones.
“The committal hearing opens a month from today,’ Cy said. ‘The Crown’s case is that Claudia hired Van Kep and another man to kill her husband. Van Kep, who’s a difficult character to read, says he doesn’t know the true identity of the other man and that it was him that did the shooting. Van Kep is being charged with conspiracy to commit murder. That’s the deal they gave him. He’s their chief witness. He’ll plead guilty and it’ll go through as smooth as you please. He’ll get seven years, serve four at the most.’
Claudia Fleischman watched me as Cy spoke. I looked at her and had trouble concentrating on what was being said. I nodded at what seemed like an appropriate moment.
‘Claudia maintains that Van Kep worked for her husband in some capacity she’s not sure of. She had no dealings with him nor with anyone else as alleged. She loved her husband and had no reason to murder him.’
I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I tried to keep the scepticism out of my voice. You don’t cop a seven-year sentence for no reason. A lot of nasty things can happen in gaol.
Mrs Fleischman smiled slightly and looked out the window. She’d caught the sceptical note. Cy replied quickly, trying to get past the awkward moment. ‘Investigate Van Kep. Find out everything about him. What he did for Julius Fleischman, why he’s lying about Claudia and, of course, try to find out who this other man is. It’s not credible that an assassin would work with someone he didn’t know.’
‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘Certainly an experienced one wouldn’t. Has Van Kep got a criminal record?’
‘Apparently not,’ Cy said.
‘Oh.’ That was bad-an inexperienced assassin could make all sorts of dumb mistakes, especially if he was on cosy terms with a woman like Mrs F.
‘Van Kep is both the strength and weakness of the Crown’s case,’ Cy said. ‘If he can be sufficiently undermined, he turns into a liability. Juries don’t like convicting on the word of self-confessed criminals, but they’ll do it if the information holds up.’
‘But Van Kep won’t be a self-confessed criminal,’ Claudia Fleischman said. ‘His trial or non-trial will take place after mine.’ Her voice was rather unusual, like the rest of her- deeper than you’d expect, with a suspicion of a lisp.
Cy nodded. ‘That’s a little spin they’ve put on things. It’ll be up to me to try to get the deal with Van Kep out into the open. The other side’ll try to stop me.’
‘There must be more to their case than just Van Kep.’
‘Yes,’ Cy said. ‘There’s…’
‘I can fill Mr Hardy in on the rest of it, Cyrus,’ Claudia Fleischman said. ‘I’ve had the training, remember? Perhaps you could drive me home, Mr Hardy?’
‘Claudia was a solicitor before she married,’ Cy said.
I tried not to stand up too quickly and not to let the fact that my car was a kilometre away bother me. We were all on our feet more or less together and Cy and Claudia were shaking hands. She bent smoothly, picked up a black leather purse with a strap and slung it over her shoulder. Her dress was plain, high-necked, pleated in front. She wore no jewellery. In her medium heels she was at least four inches taller than Cy who describes himself as ‘short average’-call her five foot ten in her stockings. I shook hands with Cy as well.
‘I’ll send you a contract, Cyrus.’
Cy winched. ‘Do that, Cliff, and be sure to keep me posted regularly. We haven’t got a lot of time.’
I followed Claudia out of the room. We both said our goodbyes to Janine and I pressed the button for the lift.
‘I walked here from the Cross,’ I said. ‘My car’s back there.’
‘I like walking, Cliff. We can go through the park. We could sit and talk there for a bit. I’m dying for a cigarette.’
We rode the lift in silence. In the confined space I could smell her perfume. I had no idea what it was but I liked it and hoped I wasn’t smelling of sweat. The streets were quieter and the people in the park had thinned out. She walked with a long, easy stride; she had the defined calf muscles you see in dancers and sprinters. And Tina Turner. Good shoulders. She headed for a bench in the shade, sat and reached into her bag. Out came a packet of Salem menthol filters. Back in my smoking days I switched from roll-your-owns to Salems when I had a cold. She shook two cigarettes up and offered me the pack. I took one and she lit us up with a gold lighter. I took a deep draw. The cigarette tasted good.
‘You’re not a smoker,’ she said.
‘I gave up ten years ago.’
She reached out, took the cigarette from me, dropped it on the ground and put her foot on it. ‘Don’t be an idiot. After ten years you’ve got your virginity back.’
I laughed. ‘You’re right, Claudia. Tell me about the other bits and pieces of the case against you.’
She looked out at the trees and grass and flowers and the few people sharing the space with us. The breeze was warm and I could smell the harbour. She puffed on the cigarette until it was half gone and then dealt with it the way she had before. I realised that we were sitting close together. Our shoulders were almost touching and I could see the fine dark down that ran below her hairline towards the corner of her jaw. I wanted to touch it and rubbed both sweaty hands together instead.
‘Sackville thinks a lot of you.’
‘We get along. He rescues me from my follies and that makes him feel adventurous.’
‘It’s more than that.’
‘Yeah. I guess we trust each other.’
She drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly. ‘I didn’t love Julius, but I had nothing to do with killing him.’
2
She told me that the prosecution had a couple of notes she’d written to her husband that were reproachful, even hostile. They accused him of being autocratic and unsympathetic to her needs. There was a witness, Judith Daniels, Fleischman’s daughter from his first marriage, who allegedly saw her at a motel with Van Kep. She also said that not long before he died, Fleischman had said he was afraid of his wife.
‘Cyrus says he isn’t too worried about the notes and whatever Judith might say. She’s vindictive and neurotic’
‘What does Van Kep say about it?’
She shook her head and the frizzy hair seemed to spring out and settle back. ‘We don’t know. They’re not obliged to tell us more than the general outline of his evidence. We have to assume that he’ll confirm it. He’s lying about everything else, why not this?’
A fat pigeon waddled over, took a peck at one of the cigarette butts and retreated in disgust. I watched it join the other birds and throw its weight around, shoving forward to get a grip on a crust.
‘Tell me about Van Kep.’
‘I know almost nothing about him. He’s tall and blond. I assume he’s of Dutch extraction, although he speaks standard Australian. I suppose he’s about thirty. I don’t know what he did for Julius. I wouldn’t have exchanged more than a few remarks with him.’
‘That’s all?’
She shrugged. ‘I could say that I suspect him to be capable of doing unpleasant things, but that might be just hindsight.’
I wanted to believe her but I didn’t know whether I did. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter either way. I’d been hired to do a job and I’d get paid however it turned out, whether it helped Cy’s case or not. Those were the rules. But rules didn’t seem to matter too much at the moment. I felt a kind of sadistic need to crack through her hard shell of composure.
‘You shouldn’t have told Cy you loved your husband. If it’s not true it makes him vulnerable every time
he asserts it.’
She’d been staring at the ground in front of her shoes. Now she lifted her head and looked straight at me. Those dark, slanted eyes seemed to weigh and assess me according to a finely graduated and completely accurate system. ‘The broken nose and the careless shave and the cheap haircut don’t inspire confidence, but you’re not stupid, are you?’
‘Only sometimes,’ I said, meaning it.
‘I didn’t tell Sackville I loved Julius. He assumed it. Does he have a young, handsome wife?’
‘Yes.’
She shrugged. ‘There you go. Transference.’
‘Why didn’t you love him?’
She was staring at the ground again. ‘That sounds like one of your stupid questions. Love, not love, in love, out of love, what does it all mean really? You can love someone one day and not the next; you can love two people at once and then no-one at all. It’s a cheap word and it’s been debased.’
I couldn’t argue with that. She lit another cigarette and smoked even less of it than the previous one before grinding it out.
‘Your husband must have had some knowledge of Van Kep when he took him on. References or something such. Where are his business records?’
‘I don’t know. I knew almost nothing about his business.’
‘Did he have an assistant, a 2IC?’
She gave me that look again. ‘I thought you’d be poking around in the underworld, using your sleazy contacts to investigate Van Kep.’
I laughed. ‘I spend as little time in sleazy company as I can. The people have b.o. and bad breath and try to borrow money all the time. The real underworld lives better.’
‘You think Julius was a high-class crook?’
‘I assume that of all millionaires until I learn different.’
She smiled. Her head tilted a bit as she did so. The slightly bucked teeth were perfectly shaped and near-white. An ambitious dentist would go mad with indecision. ‘There’s a man named Wilson Katz. He worked for Julius in some very senior capacity. He might be able to help you.’
