Deal Me Out ch-9

by Peter Corris

  A woman got out of the car and flicked the door back behind her; the action caused her to over-balance and grab at the car for support. She was tall with long blonde hair. One tanned shoulder, that had either come free of her white dress or was meant to be free of it, gleamed under the dim courtyard light. She pushed off from the car, stumbled and dropped her keys. She giggled; then she bent and clawed the gravel. She stopped giggling and started swearing. I went down the steps, crossed the gravel and grass, bent and picked up her keys. She came up from her crouch reaching for them like a dog begging. She was pretty, with a sharp-featured face and big eyes.

  ‘Thanks.’ She took the keys and nearly dropped them again.

  ‘You’re not Deirdre Kelly, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not… Hey, don’t look so disappointed. That’s not nice. Don’t I look good enough?’

  ‘You look fine. I wanted to see her, that’s all.’

  She swayed, and reached back for the fabric top of the car. ‘Won’t be home tonight. Tomorrow for sure.’

  ‘How do you know-for sure?’

  ‘Party, boy. Big party tomorrow. Hey, look, would you mind giving me a hand from here. I’m a bit pissed.’ She leaned forward to take a closer look at me, lost her balance and grabbed my shoulders. She dropped the keys again. ‘Not an attacker ‘r anything like that, ’re you?’ She smelled of gin, perfume and tobacco. ‘Don’t look like attacker. Look like a pilot or something. You a pilot?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I bent down for the keys, got an arm around her and helped her take a few faltering steps on her four inch heels. ‘Which way?’

  She pointed a long, slim arm at number eight, and I half-carried her along the path and up the steps. She leaned against the wall by the doorway and took off her shoes. I held out the keys.

  ‘Oh no, no, no,’ she slurred. ‘You don’t leave little Ginny like that. C’mon in and have a drink. You open the door, I couldn’t get it in.’

  She did some more giggling while I opened the door; I held it wide, and she tossed her shoes inside.

  ‘Cm in.’

  I was still half-supporting her, and it was beginning to be a job. She was slim, but five feet ten or so of slim, drunk woman is still a fair weight. We went down a thick-carpeted hall towards a light burning dimly in the distance. It turned out to be a kitchen light shining through a smoked glass door. I pulled at the door with my temporarily free hand; she giggled and pushed.

  The kitchen was new and glowing. It was one of those things you buy in a package and have installed by a team of men in T-shirts who sing snatches from Gilbert amp; Sullivan while they work. Ginny supported herself on the bench that divided the room and then made a gliding lunge for a chair set up beside a big, circular pine table. She hit it hard; the chair creaked but held.

  ‘Get a drink,’ she croaked. ‘What d’you like?’

  ‘Wine.’

  ‘Me too. Champagne in the fridge.’

  There were several bottles of assorted good brands in the refrigerator. I pulled out the nearest, found some glasses and a tea towel and joined her at the table.

  “s good stuff. I want fizz.’

  She jumped at the pop of the cork and giggled. I poured a full glass for me and a half for her. She smiled loosely, drained the glass in a gulp and held it out for more. I poured again and took a mouthful of the crisp bubbles. She lifted her glass and drained it again.

  ‘Toast to me,’ she said. ‘Toast to Ginny Ireland.’

  ‘Ireland?’

  ‘Like the place. Oh, can’t toast, glass’s empty.’

  I filled her up. ‘You sound like an American.’

  ‘Was. Aussie now, married an’ divorced an Aussie. What’s your name?’

  ‘Cliff.’

  ‘Cheers, Cliffy.’

  We drank some more. Her big, dark eyes started to take on a faraway look, and I reckoned that the time I had left to question her could be measured in millilitres. ‘Will you be going to Deirdre’s party, Ginny?’

  ‘Sure, always go to Dee’s. You goin’, Cliffy?’

  ‘I haven’t got an invitation, I’d like to see Dee though. Got some business to discuss among other things.’

  ‘Sounds boring, but I guess you’re sorta in the same business.’

  I didn’t say anything but let her ramble on until I could pick up my cues. After some hiccupping, it became clear that she’d fixed on the idea that I was an airline pilot. I let her run with that, and agreed with her that I’d be retiring soon and had to look after myself. That seemed to satisfy her in the way of a connection with Deirdre Kelly. She up-ended the bottle and watched it drip into her glass. I had a hand ready to catch it, but she set it down with the excessive carefulness drunks have at this stage.

  ‘She’s okay, Dee. She’s okay, I don’ care what they say.’

  ‘Who says what?’

  She bent her head to lap at the brim full glass. Strands of her hair fell in the wine and she let them drift into her mouth where she sucked them. She’d drunk nearly two thirds of the bottle on top of the load she already had, and her gaiety was dimming into something slow and studied. ‘Say she’s crazy, say she ‘magines things that don’t really happen.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  The gloss was peeling off her fast. Sweat beaded her face and the wet strands of hair were dark and matted; the make-up around her eyes was smeared and her nose was shiny under the bright kitchen light. ‘Everybody makes up things. I do. You do, doncha?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Course you do. Dee’s friends’ve got no right saying things ‘bout her like that. Bet they make up things.’

  ‘Sure. Be interesting to meet a few of ‘em, guess what they’d make up.’

  She banged her fist on the table. ‘Hey, you’re right. Like a party game: what’re your make-believes, bet I c’n guess.’ In her new mood the whim was taking on a solid reality. Less do it.’

  I grinned and sipped.

  ‘Less do it tomorrow night. Lots there. You can come with me, Cliffy. Be fun.’

  I nodded. Her eyes, which had been sliding around the room trying to find something to focus on, finally held on my face for an instant. Her head came forward in a disjointed imitation of my nod, but the movement kept on and her forehead hit the table with a light thud. She twitched once and passed out.

  I sipped the rest of my wine and waited until her shoulders had slumped and she was breathing regularly. Then I prowled through the big apartment. Her bedroom was furnished in the same packaged style as the kitchen with matching double bed, built-in cupboards and dressing table. There were enough clothes to outfit Charlie’s Angels and none of them was cheap. The fur on the pile of cushions on the bed looked real. Other rooms held basic-furniture and there was no indication of where the funds came from.

  I turned on a soft light by the bed, peeled the covers back to the black silk sheets and shoved some pillows into place. Back in the kitchen I located some aspirin and put them with a glass of water on the table by the bed. Ginny had slipped forward and was in danger of ending up under the table, literally. I picked her up, carried her to the bed and set her down. She stirred briefly and grabbed a pillow. On a sheet torn from my notebook I wrote: ‘Looking forward to the party. I’ll be here around nine. Love, Cliff.’ I added a quick and not too inaccurate sketch of an airline pilot’s wings to the bottom of the note, because I thought Ginny’s visual recall might be better than her verbal.

  I put her keys on the bedside table, and her shoes neatly together in the hall. I turned off a few lights and thought I could hear a light snoring as I let myself out of the apartment.

  21

  Nothing had changed at number seven, no new lights, no new cars outside; professional pride didn’t impel me to identify the TV channel that was providing the voices. I drove back to Glebe with the slip of paper on which I’d written the midnight contact number in my jacket pocket. I kept feeling the paper as I drove, wishing it was something more substantial, wishing that
I was causing things to happen instead of being Grey’s representative in Mountain’s game.

  I got home with a couple of minutes to spare. I dialled and got a recorded message as I expected. It told me to speak after the blip.

  Blip. ‘This is Hardy, Grey. I think I’m onto something but the relevant meeting is tomorrow night. Don’t hurt the girl or I swear I’ll come after you and break your back. I assume you’ll be in touch.’ I hung up feeling ridiculous at making threats into machines at the stroke of midnight. I waited. At five minutes into the new day the phone rang and the same voice as before spoke quickly: ‘Delighted to hear that you’re making progress. The girl is fine, although we’ve had some trouble in restraining Peroni. Don’t make empty threats. Hardy; it creates a bad impression. I’m going to read you your next contact number twice. I’ll expect a call twenty-four hours from now.’ He did that, I wrote the number down and the line went dead.

  There are more ways to set up secure telephone contacts than there are to nobble horses and the Grey Organisation (as I’d come to think of it) seemed to be aware of it. I sat and brooded, forseeing a series of nights of telephone calls until there was nothing on the other end of the line. The thought chilled and depressed me. I went to bed where I had trouble finding sleep, and when I did find it, the sleep was troubled by dreams of Helen Broadway, Erica Fong and bloody objects arriving in the mail.

  About ten the following morning, I got a call from Terry Reeves. The Audi had been found.

  ‘God,’ I said. ‘Where?’

  ‘Right outside the office.’

  ‘In what condition?’

  ‘Mint. You have anything to do with this, Cliff?’

  ‘Mate, I’d like to claim the credit, but I can’t. I’ve been on the trail of the bloke who took it, but I haven’t even got close to him. I think he’s in Sydney-that’s how it’s been, that vague.’

  He grunted. ‘Well, I’m not complaining. Send me an account and I’ll fix you up.’

  ‘Okay.’ I was embarrassed; it felt like taking money for nothing and I went in for some self-justificaton. ‘Terry, there’s an organisation behind this; it goes interstate…’

  ‘I’m not madly interested, Cliff. Not very public-spirited of me, I know, but I’ve got a business to run. Unless you’re saying it could happen to me again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Are you saying you can recover the other cars, mine I mean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think we’ll call it a day then, Cliff. Thanks for what you’ve done. I can wear the insurance on the others, the Audi would have been the last straw.’

  He was embarrassed, too. We both went polite and let each other off lightly, the way friends should. I’d keep my bill low, and he’d pay promptly. The Crusades were a long time ago. The business situation-left with no new client and inhibitions about billing the last one-was bad, but the side issues the Reeves case had generated threatened to be a disaster. I didn’t know where Erica was, or what Mountain was doing by returning the car. That was puzzling. Did it mean that Mountain had been in touch with Grey and that this was a move in that game? Would Grey have told Mountain about Erica, and what would Mountain’s reaction be? It was like fumbling around in a dark, locked room for a light switch that wasn’t there.

  I knocked up a cheapo bill for Terry and drove to Darlinghurst feeling worm-like. The orange skirts and white blouses blossomed around the parking bays and in the office, and the place seemed to wear a new air of optimism. I walked into the office with the folded account in my hand, wanting to explain the circumstances, but wanting to meet Terry Reeves about as much as I wanted to meet Pol Pot.

  Things had changed a bit. Terry’s office was now a walled-in box. That was probably the idea of some security consultant; there seemed to be more screens around too-TV monitors and VDTs. Terry wouldn’t like the changes, but maybe he didn’t have any choice. His secretary was parked outside his office behind a big desk with an intricate-looking telephone system. In her quick glance I read approval of the new arrangement and disapproval of me. She held out her hand for the paper I was carrying.

  ‘Mr Reeves isn’t in,’ she said.

  ‘Cliff Hardy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hardy, he really isn’t in.’

  I handed the account across. ‘This is my account for the work I’ve been doing for him. I understand the Audi has been returned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d like to look at it, please.’

  She looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘I don’t want to dismantle or drive it, I just want a look. It’s important.’

  She wasn’t going to budge. ‘What would you be looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know, anything that might have been left in it.’ I opened my hands. ‘Evidence.’

  ‘I see.’ She picked up her phone and dialled the workshop. If the CIA had had her, Chris Boyce would still be flying falcons. She spoke briefly into the phone and looked up at me. ‘Are you interested in body damage?’

  ‘Only to me.’

  She tapped her pencil impatiently and I nodded. She spoke again and looked up. ‘There isn’t any. They’re sending up everything they found. Mr Reeves asked for it to be kept.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She motioned me to a seat and I sat down feeling grateful that Reeves’ old investigative habits were still with him. The secretary got on with her phoning and filing and ignored me; I was very low on charisma for the employees of Bargain Renta Car. After a while a man in orange overalls came into the office and put a plastic bag on the secretary’s desk.

  ‘Thanks, Ken.’

  Ken winked at her and went out. She pushed the bag across the desk and I reached for it. Inside was a tattered copy of the Melbourne Age, a half-empty bottle of Suntory whisky and a glossy, folded pamphlet. The secretary’s eyes widened as I unfolded the pamphlet; mine probably widened too. It was a catalogue of sadomasochistic ‘love aids’ available from the I’ll Be Bound boutique in the Cross. Whips, light and heavy; leather constraints of various kinds; chains; velvet and silk garments designed to define areas of interest. The stuff was superbly photographed and the whole production had a streamlined, high-tech gloss. The chains gleamed against velvet folds; the whip ends lay on smooth, soft leather. There were lavish bedroom scenes in which the faces and bodies of the active and passive participants were taut with pleasure.

  The secretary got up and came around her desk for a better look. She gazed over my shoulder at a picture of a black man with an enormous erection and wearing a white mask who was shackling a couple who were in a contortionistic oral embrace.

  ‘God,’ she said.

  ‘Turn you on?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I folded up the pamphlet and put it in my pocket. She was breathing hard but still at her post. ‘I don’t know that you should take that away.’

  ‘I’m old enough,’ I said. I put the paper and bottle back in the bag. ‘Here, you can give this to Ken.’

  22

  The Falcon sometimes won’t start unless you jiggle the key in a certain way, and I sometimes forget to jiggle the key if I’m not concentrating on starting the car. The starter motor was whining and the engine wasn’t firing as I tried to remember the phrase Lambert had used of Morgan Shaw. ‘New interest’, that was it. That resolved, I jiggled the key and the car started.

  The I’ll Be Bound boutique was one floor up above a doctor’s surgery in Bayswater Road. It was elegantly appointed, all deep-carpet and muted-light chic. The goods were on display in discreetly under-lit glass cases with heavy un-chic locks. The staff consisted of two people, rail-thin with deathly pale faces, wearing black tights and jumpers and dark make-up, who could have been of either sex or neither. I blinked in the gloom and one of them approached me and asked if he or she could be of any help.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. I pulled out the pamphlet and put it down on a glass case, covering a red and black silk nightie and knicker set that
would be no use at all on a cold winter night. ‘Can anyone get hold of one of these or are they for special customers only?’

  The person swivelled on a medium heel and pointed at the counter which I could scarcely see through the gloom. ‘They are over there. Anyone can come in and take one.’

  ‘I see.’ I peered at the counter and saw something above it that looked like a cross-bow before I realised it was a double dildo with ribbons. There was a stack of the pamphlets beside a silk top hat. ‘Yes, I see.’

  A man wearing a yellow jump suit came into the shop and the attendant’s black-rimmed eyes flicked across to him. ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Look around. You might see something you like.’

  I felt my way across to the counter; a woman came out from behind a curtain wearing a leather vest with holes in it that allowed her breasts to poke out. She looked at me.

  ‘What d’you think?’ she said.

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  The other attendant sniffed; I grabbed another copy of the pamphlet and groped my way back to the stairs.

  I stopped in Glebe to buy the sort of shampoo and aftershave that would go with a swinging party in Pymble. Driving home, I tried to remember the last party I’d been to. I recalled a couple Helen and I had dropped in on for an hour or less, and one good one that had celebrated the birthday of an FM disc jockey neighbour. We’d all got drunk and sung the songs of the sixties. I doubted there’d be much Buddy Holly sung in Pymble.

  I cleaned myself up, ate and drank something and tried to feel professional. It was hard without a client. I re-read the Mountain synopsis, or bits of it, but there was no indication of what Morgan Shaw’s ‘new interest’ might be-it could have been sado-masochism, it could’ve been stamp collecting. The cat followed me around the house. Every time I turned around it was there, looking at me. I fed it and it still followed me. I put it outside and it jumped up to the window and looked in at me.