The Empty Beach

by Peter Corris

  ‘No trouble,’ Rex said. He was the gunman and the weapon in his belt looked like a nine-millimetre Browning, which is a lot of gun when your target is tied up like corned silverside. He pulled me up to my feet and I tried to grin at him.

  ‘Think you’ll need the gun, Rex?’

  For an answer he hooked my feet out from under me and I fell heavily. It had been a dry winter and the ground was hard; now my shoulder hurt as well as my shin. I decided that I didn’t like Rex.

  ‘We’ll put him in the squash court,’ he said. He kicked me lightly in the ribs.

  ‘Crawl, smartarse. Over there.’

  I lay still, so he kicked me again harder and I crawled. It’s hard to crawl when you’re tied up like that; things stick into you and hurt. I got a cramp in the calf after a few yards and stopped. I felt his shoe again and moved on. It wasn’t far, maybe less than a hundred yards, but my clothes were badly ripped and there was a lot of skin missing from me when I got there.

  The driver and Rex had followed my progress, chatting chummily. At one point, at a pause for breath and to respond to a boot-delivered change in direction, I got a look at the driver. He wore white overalls and sported a heavy, dark beard. He was built strong and wide and looked like he could do a few useful things besides drive cars. At the end of the crawl the driver pulled out a bunch of keys and unlocked a door. Rex got hold of some shirt and flesh and pulled and pushed me over a low step; then he gave me one of those funny little kicks he was so good at and I pitched over onto a hard wooden floor.

  They closed the door and it was very dark. I propped myself up against the wall and checked for serious injuries a limb at a time. I seemed to be in working order, although a lot of the normal movements hurt like hell. There were no windows in the room and I edged my way around the walls, feeling for a light switch with my head and shoulders. I found it and turned it on with my chin, but no light resulted. That was a disappointment. I squatted down again and told myself that a big house like this, and that shape had been really big, would have a master switch to turn off the light in the outbuildings. It was only natural; it wasn’t a direct strike at Hardy.

  The squash court was like a coffin. The floor was made of sanded, tightly-packed boards and the walls were smooth. I tried to remember what a court looked like in the light and couldn’t. I’d never played the game, which seemed to me like a barbarity designed solely to make people sweat. I assumed there were lines painted on the floor, but there were no cupboards, no fittings, no racquets left lying about. I was wearing jeans and a denim shirt, desert boots and socks; it wasn’t cold but it felt as if it could get cold, and that’s nearly as bad. However I positioned myself it was impossible to sleep—I lost consciousness a few times, that’s all.

  I watched the light seep in around the edges of the door as the morning broke. I’d been wrong about the lack of windows; there was a skylight shaded by a tree. Enough light came in to show me the lines on the floor and wall; somehow, in that grey light, the room felt even more menacing than it had in the dark. I’d said a lot of unkind things about squash in my time, and I had the nasty feeling that squash was fighting back.

  Just to show some spirit and get the blood flowing, I started battering the door with my shoulders and shouting. The driver came to the door and rapped on it.

  ‘Shut up!’ His intonation made it worse—he didn’t really care whether I shut up or not. He said it contemptuously, and I slumped back down on the floor.

  I panicked a bit then. I’d heard about a man who took two sleeping pills and some scotch when he got on a plane to London and who slept most of the way with his arm in the same poor circulation position. His arm was paralysed for a month as a result. My arms were stiff and sore behind me and I thought I was losing feeling in my hands. I battered and shouted some more, louder.

  Rex opened the door. He was freshly showered and shaved; he smelled of after-shave and coffee. I hated him as much as I have ever hated anyone, which is a lot. He gestured with the gun for me to move back.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

  ‘I think my arms are paralysed. Pinched nerve or something.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘I’ve lost feeling in my hands.’

  I could see him thinking it over. Does it matter? he was wondering. I wondered too; if it didn’t matter that meant that my feeling things in my hands or anywhere else, wasn’t part of the plan. I tried to keep my voice calm.

  ‘I don’t know what you want with me. Information, I suppose. If I’m paralysed I’d just as soon be dead and I won’t tell anyone a fucking thing, whatever you do.’

  ‘How’re your legs?’ He was just the hired help and now he had to make decisions. Life is so unfair.

  ‘Sore and stiff. You put in a good boot. But it’s the arms I’m worried about.’

  He looked around the room carefully. Then he nodded and took a Swiss army knife out of his pocket, the kind that has a shifting spanner and a cross-cut saw on it.

  ‘Lie down on your belly.’

  I did and he put the muzzle of the gun in my ear while he sawed away with the knife. I screamed when my arms came free. At first I thought he’d cut me, but it was just the blood moving and a cramp gripping a muscle. But by the time I’d sat up and swivelled around, he had gone.

  I moved my arms gently, massaging, stretching and bending until the feeling got back near normal. All the joints worked, the arms turned in their sockets, the elbows bent. But it took an age to get my legs free; the knots were tight and my fingers were sloppy. When I finished I had complete movement, it was 8.15 am and I had seven feet of hard, thin cord to play with.

  I coiled the rope around my waist under my shirt and waited. At nine am I urinated near the door and most of it ran out. At nine-thirty there was some swearing outside and the door was unlocked. Rex was there with his trusty Browning, but the piss had produced some mud outside and he’d got it on his nice clean drill trousers.

  ‘You filthy bastard,’ he said.

  ‘What’d you expect me to do? Piss in my mouth?’

  He kept the gun steady and sneaked a look down at his slacks. Dry cleaning job, definitely.

  ‘I oughter brain you for this.’ His face went dark with anger and he lost a good bit of the slightly overweight elegance I’d credited him with. I felt better and gave him some more.

  ‘It’s only piss. Shouldn’t stain if you get ’em off quick and give ’em a good soak. Get them off now.’

  He looked ready to explode but a voice hailed him from behind. He drew in a deep, cooling-off breath.

  ‘Get up. Try anything funny and I’ll shoot you.’

  I got up and walked stiffly to the door; I took a long step over the puddle and gave Rex a grin. He prodded me hard in a very tender rib with the gun.

  ‘The house. Move!’

  We tramped up a wide brick path to the house. The shapes of the previous night became identifiable buildings—a big garage, something that looked like a stable, a greenhouse. The property was a big place; the white fences ran up over a hill in one direction and the pasture flowed on uninterruptedly in another direction until it met the bush.

  The house was Australian baronial, a huge affair, two-storeyed with a wide, white pillared verandah right around. There was a lot of sandstone in its construction and a good deal of timber and glass. Old timber, cedar and jarrah. It was a nineteenth-century house, a wool fortune house.

  A fresh-looking Toyota Land Cruiser was parked near it; that made me check for other transportation in case I’d be doing some more travelling. I could see the rear end of a Volvo sticking out of the garage and nothing else. There were plenty of horses around. No light aircraft or helicopters.

  We went up some steps to a door at the side of the house. Rex yelled, ‘Tal!’ twice and the driver opened the door. He was still wearing overalls, still looking useful.

  ‘Billiard room,’ Tal said.

  We marched through several connecting rooms which seemed to have no fun
ction except as places to arrange furniture in. We went down a passage to where a leather-padded, studded door stood open. Tal went on ahead and said, ‘He’s here.’

  The room was big and filled with light from a row of high-set windows; it was wood-panelled with two billiard tables, a dart board, some sporting prints on the walls and a bar. It had a sheep-roasting fireplace at one end. A man was bending over one of the tables, lining up a shot with the rapt concentration of an addict. He shot smoothly but missed. Then he straightened up and looked at me. I looked back. He was tall and thin with grey hair brushed severely back. He had the sort of grooved face that comes from dieting and his clothes—blue shirt, grey trousers and the vest of a three-piece suit—hung loosely on him as if he’d lost weight since they were bought or made. His small moustache didn’t suit his rugged face. He chalked his cue with hands that looked well cared for but that hadn’t always been so.

  ‘Hardy,’ he said.

  ‘Right. Who’re you?’

  ‘You don’t need to know.’ He waved the cue expressively as if that dismissed the question and bent over the table again.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ I said. ‘I’m impressed by your big house and your helpers and your billiard room. Squash court, too. Great setup. What’s your interest in me?’

  He shot again and missed again.

  ‘You’re not lined up right,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your arse is off line. Swivel your hips a bit and get in line with the ball.’

  He swung the cue and smashed its light end down on my shoulder. The wood splintered and I got a sharp pain to add to my dull, throbbing ones.

  ‘Don’t play the smartarse with me. I’ve seen better men than you off, right off. Understand?’

  I rubbed the shoulder and nodded. His face was flushed and his thin body seemed stretched tight with the anger—short fuse, poor control, high blood pressure. Bad health risk, a ‘D’ life, as I’d have said in my insurance days. They had been boring, dispiriting days but right then they had a kind of attraction.

  ‘What’re you doing poking your nose around in Bondi?’ he said.

  ‘Working,’ I said. ‘I’m …’

  ‘I know what you are, a small-time, shit-eating private investigator.’ He made it sound bad, worse than it is. ‘Who are you working for?’

  I shook my head. ‘Can’t tell you that. Ethics of the profession.’

  ‘Ethics,’ he sneered. He was a good sneerer and the moustache looked better when he sneered. ‘Look at you, you’re a mess. How can it be worth it?’ He sat down in a leather armchair and crossed his legs. His socks and shoes were black. Silk and leather, very pricey.

  ‘Make me a drink, Rex.’

  Rex moved over to the bar and got busy with the bottles. I turned a little and saw that Tal had a small gun out. I had two guns, one in Glebe and one in Bronte. Rex brought a nice tall scotch and soda across and handed it to his boss, who didn’t thank him. He sipped the drink with a bit more than appreciation. At first glance he looked pretty good for an oldster, but on closer inspection there were signs of decay. He wasn’t really that old, not more than sixty, but the grey hair was thin in spots and his colour wasn’t good. The blue shirt lent it some life but there was something strange about his skin, as if it was trying to turn grey.

  ‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’ll guess and you can nod, you don’t have to say a word. No-one can say that you said anything, perfectly true.’ He was trying for a pally tone but I didn’t respond. ‘It’s got to be that Singer bitch, or Mac. Which one? Just give me a nod and I’ll do the rest. You don’t even have to tell us what you’re doing.’

  I watched him drink some more scotch and didn’t say a thing.

  ‘I’ll pay you for your time. What d’you say?’

  I didn’t believe a word of it. It was as weak as a vicar’s shandy. I believed him more when he was boasting and threatening.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  ‘You think you’re tough?’ He took a big drink and spilled a few drops on his vest. ‘I could let Rex have you to himself in that squash room for a while.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I said.

  ‘Rex and Tal together. How’d you like that?’

  ‘Not as much.’

  ‘You’ve been worked over once—what do you want, for Christ’s sake?’

  I didn’t answer him. It seemed that my only chance lay in his uncertainty as to who I was working for. It was abduction already, guns were in view and he boasted of having killed men before. I believed him. But apparently he wouldn’t kill me until he had sorted out who he was hitting at if he hit me. Maybe I was finished anyway, but they wouldn’t kill me here, and I might get a chance on the way to wherever they would do it.

  ‘You’re fuckin’ stupid!’ The old rough side of him was showing now, the street side, maybe the gaol side. He finished the drink and for a minute I thought he was going to ask for another. That would have been hard on me, because I was feeling bad about the drink. I wanted one very badly, more for the wetness than the alcohol. I’d have settled for water. But I had a half-formed plan on that and I just clamped my jaw shut and tried to look resolute. He didn’t ask for another scotch but I could tell he wanted it.

  He got up. ‘All right, Rex, sling him back in the box and let him think about it. Don’t break his neck. Tal, I’ve got to go to town.’

  Rex turned me around with a prod of the gun. I gave the broken end of the billiard cue a quick kick and it skittered across the planks. Rex jumped and prodded me again, Tal swore and the lord of the manor spun around as if he’d heard a shot. They were a very nervy bunch.

  ‘Tonight, Hardy,’ the boss man said. ‘Or we’ll put you in a hole.’

  13

  BACK in the box, I reflected on the little I’d learned from the encounter with the bad billiard player. Garth Green had mentioned someone else, apart from Singer and McLeary, who had a piece of the action on the beaches, and this looked like him. Those eastern suburbs enterprises must have been coining money, because this was a million-dollar setup. Apparently, though, all was not tranquil in that little world.

  I worried about Ann Winter and about the fact that I couldn’t see how all this action that had broken loose around me connected with John Singer, presumed dead. Rex didn’t look like the Bronte ripper, either, but you never can tell. I wondered where I was, then I wondered if I’d ever know.

  I heard a car start up and drive off—the Volvo. That took Tal and Mr Big away, and left Rex and who knew how many more. I started kicking the door. There was a bit of give in it and kicking made a satisfactory noise, although there was no hope at all of breaking it down. After five minutes’ kicking, Rex’s voice broke through the racket.

  ‘Stop that fuckin’ noise. What’re you playing at?’

  ‘Tongue swollen,’ I croaked. ‘Going to choke. Water.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Something wrong.’ I strangled and mangled my voice. ‘Choking on it. Water, please.’

  I heard his footsteps go back towards the house and I unwound the cord. I tied knots in one end, doubling them, until I had about five feet to swing and two feet in a hard, knobbly ball. I swung and cracked it a few times experimentally. I took a bead on the line on the wall and didn’t miss by much.

  The footsteps came back and a key turned in the door. I stood back a bit and let him come in; he had a plastic jug in one hand and the gun in the other. He took his eye off me for a split second while he put the jug down. I stepped forward and lashed the rope at him. The ball got him squarely in the eye, which was my first piece of luck for quite some time. He yelped and raised the gun, but I was in close by then, chopping at his hand. The gun skidded across the smooth boards. He only had one eye to work with, but he was game; he rushed, trying to butt me back to the wall, but I sidestepped and kicked at his legs. He went down, jumped up fast and came in swinging. One punch landed on the shoulder the billiard cue had hit, and I bellowed with the pain. I wa
lked through two punches and smashed a hard right to the side of his head. The knuckle popped in and out again. I put a left onto his nose and got him again with the right on the ear. He lurched crazily and I dropped my shoulder and slammed him back against the wall. He propped there with his arms hanging wide, gasping for breath. I hit him hard, very low, with both hands, and he went down. He vomited and his eyes closed.

  I’d been right about the gun; it was a nine-millimetre Browning Hi-Power, very popular in Europe. It carries thirteen shots in the magazine, and this one was fully loaded with one bullet in the chamber. It was the most powerful handgun I’d ever seen. It looked dangerous even lying on the floor against the wall, and I handled it with a kind of revulsion. I recovered the cord, unknotted and tied Rex Houdini-style, hands and feet. His eyes opened and he swore at me.

  ‘Don’t do that, Rex,’ I said. ‘I’ve only kicked you once; I owe you a few.’

  I took a big mouthful of the water, swilled it around and spat it on the floor. It was frothy and red; he was a good puncher, Rex. I drank some water.

  That left me with a gun I didn’t like and not much else. It was a straight road away from the house and there was no cover for hundreds of yards on either side of it. The Land Cruiser was still parked in front of the house, but my chances of commandeering it were slim; I could hardly hot-wire a Holden, let alone a Land Cruiser, and there might be more ugly people in the house or around the estate. I stood in the shadowed part of the doorway and thought that what I really needed was a Honda 750 or a telephone, or both.

  As I watched, an old Japanese car drove up the road. Its rust spots jarred with the pristine white railing and superphosphated fields. The car made the turn at the top of the drive and came to a stop, pointing back towards the road and about fifty yards from the squash court. A man in a checked jacket and dark trousers got out, reached back into the car for what looked like a bundle of papers, and walked up towards the house. He was gangling and young with longish, untidy fair hair. He didn’t look like one of Mr Big’s minions or like the next-door neighbour calling in for coffee. His trouser bottoms flapped as he walked and the hem of his jacket was down at the back.