The Empty Beach

by Peter Corris

  ‘Oh, that. I was just trying to stir things up. Actually, I think you probably killed him.’

  ‘I thought you were a bullshitter when I first heard about you and now I know. Why would I kill John?’

  ‘Ward’s moving shop. With Singer gone, you’d control the game.’

  He smiled around a big mouthful of pizza. I remembered that I was supposed to be trying to gauge his reactions, but it was hard with his face full of food. Also, I had the feeling that he was only half paying attention, that he was off on a tangent of some sort.

  ‘Just like that?’ he said.

  ‘Well, you’d have to work things out with Marion.’

  That ruffled him. His hand jerked and he almost spilled beer on his pants. ‘You don’t know her!’ he spluttered. ‘It’s taken me …’ He broke off and pushed his lower lip out under the upper in a ‘what the hell’ gesture. ‘Well, that’s no bloody business of yours. I didn’t kill Singer. I don’t think anyone killed him. There’s nothink in it.’

  ‘Why did you have me picked up, then?’ I tried to put some aggression into the question, but I wasn’t feeling at all aggressive. The session was very unsatisfactory. I was getting no change out of McLeary and all my experiment had got me so far was a broken walking stick.

  I asked the question again, which only made me sound as nervous as I felt. I sneaked a look at Bob; he was leaning back against the wall, but not looking as bored as he should have been. Neither was Sharon; a little bit of tongue about the same colour as her suit was showing between her small, white teeth and her eyes were wide open and keen, as if she was watching something good on TV. Only Mac looked appropriately bored, and that could have been because he’d finished eating. He had a toothpick out and was excavating and sucking down the results. His baby blues were half closed and he seemed to be thinking. He dropped the toothpick into the remains of the hoummos and asked Sharon for a cigar. She got one from somewhere near the bar, brought it across and he lit it himself with a Dunhill lighter. He seemed to have forgotten my question. I felt very nervous and leaned forward to scratch my knee.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ Mac asked.

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘Let’s see it.’

  I didn’t move. Bob came up and touched me on the unbandaged ear with something hard and warm. It was the gun, which he must have been wearing somewhere nice and close to his armpit.

  ‘Do you want him to pull his pants leg up, Mac, or should he drop them?’

  Sharon sniggered and Mac gave a slight smile.

  ‘Up,’ he said. ‘Don’t want to excite Sharon too early in the night.’

  The trousers weren’t tight. I rolled the leg up past the knee to show the brace. In that comfortable atmosphere, composed of the food smells and the rich aroma of Mac’s cigar, the device looked hideous. The plastic shone pink with a blue tint, like the skin of freshly cleaned rabbit. It was a reminder that flesh could be torn and bones broken.

  Mac puffed out a billow of smoke. ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘Broken?’

  I rolled the cloth back down. The cylinder was still inside the padding, but there didn’t seem to be much point in sounding the alarm. I still didn’t know what was going on in Mac’s mind and for all I knew the cops could still have been circling the Nimrod Theatre. I could throw my glass and try for Bob’s gun and the odds on that coming good were about the same as for Braddock beating Louis. It looked as if my only hope lay in some good talking. My tongue felt stiff and only half-linked to a sluggish brain.

  ‘It’s twisted,’ I said. ‘This guy in Bronte kicked me, and your offsider here broke my stick. Do you know Freddy Ward’s heavy named Rex?’

  ‘I know him,’ Mac said.

  ‘He’s tougher than this bloke and I took him.’

  ‘How was your leg then?’ Bob asked.

  ‘I’ll look out for you when the leg gets better.’

  It was thin stuff and not making any impression. The sweat of fear jumped out on me when I realised what an empty sound my last words had had. There was no response to them. The knee wasn’t going to get better. Their faces wore the curious, dispassionate look of the judges at the Nuremberg trials. Wheels were in motion, inexorably.

  Sharon spoke for the first time in a tinny, sick little voice. ‘She might like that, the knee.’ What she said made no sense to me, so I ignored it.

  ‘I don’t understand why you picked me up,’ I said.

  Mac waved his cigar hand expansively. ‘You will, mate. Forget about Singer and all that. There’s someone who wants to see you again.’

  A door off to the right opened and Smelly came in with some sticking plaster across his face. He held the door wide and a smallish, dark figure glided into the room—Mary Mahoud.

  25

  MAHOUD didn’t waste time getting down to business. One, two, three steps across the thick carpet in her desert boots and she was smashing me in the face with her fist. She had her arm back for the follow-up when Mac shook his silver head and said, ‘Bob’, quietly. It was a nice friendly name for a man in Bob’s line of work, and I felt quite well-disposed towards him as he eased Mahoud away with a bit of arm and shoulder work.

  ‘I wish I could say it was nice to see you,’ I said.

  She sneered at me. ‘You’ll be sorry for everything.’ She wasn’t panting with rage and her eyes weren’t alight with triumph. They were dull, flat and malevolent. I gathered she blamed me for Manny’s death and hadn’t forgiven me for busting up her million-dollar gaol. It was a lot to hold against a man, and I had a feeling she had something unpleasant planned for me.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ I said. ‘You should be out of the country. Everyone’s hunting you, Federal cops …’

  ‘Manfred had all of that planned. A place to hide, but we thought we would have more time.’

  ‘You grabbed the money and ran.’

  She raised her hand as if she was going to hit me again. She had simple solutions. But she changed the movement into a shrug. ‘Yes, I was afraid. I ran away.’

  I understood her better then; she was feeling guilty about shooting through on Manfred and she’d never be able to justify it to him or herself. I was a good target for that disturbance, too. I turned to look at Mac and Sharon, but I made the movement a bit too suddenly and my dented head, torn ear and battered ribs all hurt.

  ‘Do you know what this bitch did?’ I said. ‘She had these old people in cages like animals. She fed them cat food while she banked their pensions. She let them die; probably helped some of them along.’

  ‘Probably,’ Mac said. ‘I read about it. No-hopers, plonkos, what do they matter? If the government’s crazy enough to give people like that money, there’ll be smarties around to take it off them.’

  Sharon said, ‘Cat food? I didn’t read about that.’

  ‘You can’t read,’ Mac said. ‘It was on the telly, you should’ve seen it.’

  ‘Ugh, cat food.’

  ‘And pills and wine. They were zonked out most of the time.’

  ‘Humane, I’d call it.’ Mac gave his pot to Sharon again, patting her bum as she got up by way of apology for insulting her intelligence. Sharon swung her behind like a stripper on her way across to the bar. I’d been barking up the wrong tree trying to needle Mac. The talk had cheered him up; no one was going to feed him cat food and cheap wine.

  Mahoud got herself a tonic water and stayed near the window, sipping it. She didn’t look as if she had come to much harm in the time that had passed since Manfred sent her off for the van. The bruise on the side of her face had faded and I realised how misleading my description of her had been. The light in the house of horrors and the whole context had led me to exaggerate her mean, foxy look but out in the street, wearing those androgynous clothes, nobody would take a second look at her. She certainly didn’t look like a mass murderer. But then, neither had John Reginald Christie. One thing was certain, though; if she had any money on hand, she’d better watch it because I had the feeling that Mac around money w
as like a shark around offal. Maybe I could use that somehow. I moved the bad leg stiffly.

  ‘What was that about his knee?’ Mahoud asked.

  ‘Badly twisted,’ Bob said. ‘He’s got a sort of brace on it.’

  Mahoud’s face took on some animation for the first time. ‘Manny did that,’ she said softly. ‘I’d like to twist it back the other way.’

  ‘Why not?’ Bob said. Sharon seemed to like that; she tried to sip and laugh at the same time and a cough was the result.

  ‘You’re too young to drink,’ I said.

  ‘You shut up!’ Mac snapped. ‘There’s a little package deal on here, Hardy, for your information. Miss Mahoud needs some documents which I can supply because she’s got the do-re-mi. She’s paid a bit more to meet up with you again. I was curious about you, too. My curiosity’s satisfied.’

  ‘Mine isn’t,’ I said. ‘And the cops aren’t far off. Bob only dropped some of them. They doubled up.’

  ‘Crap!’ Mac had his beer going down again and that always seemed to cheer him. ‘That’s garbage. You’re shit scared, anyone could see that. The cops are so short-handed they shit in shifts. You dumped them, Bob. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’ll be saying goodnight, Hardy. Bob and Terry can handle the rest of it, Miss Mahoud.’

  She put her glass down hard. It made a ringing noise that swung every eye in the room her way.

  ‘No, I don’t trust them,’ she said, fiercely. ‘And I don’t trust you. He might be telling the truth about the policemen. I want you there too, Mr Mac.’

  ‘Listen,’ Mac snarled. ‘I don’t do this sort of thing, not any more. You’ve got two good men and you’ve got my word.’

  ‘No, you come or no money.’

  Bob stepped up, but Mac signalled him back. Smelly Terry used the diversion to sneak himself a drink at the bar. Sharon glared at him, but Mac drank some more beer and appeared to be thinking. He wiped his mouth and got up. I read volumes in that, and none of it good for Mary Mahoud. ‘All right,’ Mac said heavily. ‘You can come, too, Sharon.’

  ‘No!’ she squeaked. ‘No, I don’t want to.’

  Mac slapped her twice. He swivelled to do it in the way wrestlers do, and he put some of that bulk into it. The girl staggered and he caught her.

  ‘I don’t want any unpleasantness, Sharon. Just do everythink you’re told.’

  He didn’t include me in that. I was already beginning to feel that I wasn’t there, wasn’t anywhere.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Mac grinned at me and looked across at Bob.

  ‘I don’t think the place has a name,’ Bob said.

  They bustled about collecting car keys and cigarettes, like people getting ready for a picnic. Terry picked up a slice of pizza and tucked it away. Mac looked at him indulgently; Terry was evidently going to come into his own soon, and I doubted that his speciality was bird calls.

  We made quite a crowd in the lift. Sharon edged away from Terry for obvious reasons, but no-one else seemed to mind his lack of personal freshness. Bob carried himself admirably—loose and unencumbered, leaving himself plenty of space to do whatever was called for. Mac was grim-faced, Mahoud looked edgy and I had to concentrate on keeping upright.

  Terry scouted the car park and gave Bob the high sign. Mac handed Terry his keys.

  ‘Get the Merc over here,’ he said.

  Then there was a shout and two shots and bodies were moving apart as if a great, sharp blade was slashing at them. I dived for the ground, the knee screaming as I went. An interior light in a car positioned near the Commodore flashed on and I saw Freddy Ward’s arm jerk up. There was a shot from behind and above me—I guessed from Bob—and the windscreen of Ward’s car was starred. Two rapid shots came from another direction and there was a grunt behind me. I thought I might as well make my contribution and I scrabbled at my trouser leg. Someone shouted ‘Stop!’ There was another shot and then echoes and then silence.

  A voice, close to my ear asked, ‘What are you doing, Cliff?’

  I let go of my pants, swore and turned my head to see Roger Wallace of the Wallace Brown Agency. He stands about six foot four in his three-piece suit.

  ‘Hello, Rog,’ I croaked. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

  ‘Word gets around, Cliff. When Freddy got out the guns and came after Mac, I knew you’d be in the middle. You owe me money; I had to take steps to protect it.’

  ‘I’m glad you did. Who shot who?’

  He helped me up and I leaned against a Rover which felt solid enough to prop me up.

  ‘Let’s see.’ He lifted his head and looked across the neon-lit concrete. ‘Ward shot one of McLeary’s boys. He’s dead. One of my boys shot a guy in Ward’s car. He’s not dead.’

  Freddy Ward and another man were standing by the car with the broken windscreen. One of Roger’s operatives was covering them a bit dramatically with a pistol. Ward looked pale and gaunt under the light. I blew him a kiss and his face went stony. I couldn’t see Rex or Tal. Behind me Terry was standing stock still near the lift, his hands reaching up for the illuminated sign that said ‘Elevator’. Another of Roger’s men was watching him but dividing his attention between Terry and a huddle on the ground that was bright and dark and making sobbing noises.

  I limped over and saw that it was Mac with his head in Sharon’s lap. I looked at Roger and he shook his head.

  ‘Not shot. Heart, I think. Ambulance on the way.’

  Bob’s legs were sticking out from behind a car. Those big bullets push hard.

  ‘Did you see a dark woman with us, Roger?’

  ‘Quickest mover I ever saw. She took off.’ He pulled out a packet of Marlboro and offered them. I put out my hand, remembered, and pulled it back. I shook my head and other parts of me were shaking as well.

  ‘Cliff,’ Roger blew a stream of smoke in Terry’s direction. ‘What were you doing with your strides down there on the ground?’

  ‘It’s going to rain,’ I said. ‘I was scratching my knee.’

  26

  THE cops had never had so many licensed, bonded private detectives together in the one place at the one time before, and they made the most of it. The scene at Police Headquarters was like something out of Colombo and the cops swaggered or bumbled around, according to how they cast themselves. Roger Wallace got through it all with an icy smile on his face. His men frazzled a little towards the end and I frazzled a lot as my leg hurt me more and more. Analgesics and caffeine were fighting skirmishes in my system, bombing and strafing and laying waste to the territory. Roger’s men mocked me for not having a gun, but I couldn’t see that they needed any more guns. Frank Parker and I had an unspoken pact—he wouldn’t draw attention to my bleeper if I wouldn’t mention how easily the late Bob had dropped his men off in Redfern.

  Frederick Allan Ward was charged with murder, which would be reduced to manslaughter because he had a good enough lawyer to see to that. A policewoman took Sharon off somewhere, I never found out where. Rex and Bob were dead, Mac was in hospital and Terry was charged with silly stuff like unlicensed firearms and attempted abduction.

  Before everything wound up about three am, the news came through that Mac had died of a massive coronary. In the taxi on the way home I reflected that Freddy Ward’s chances of becoming the vice king of Macarthur Onslow land had taken a nosedive. That left Mrs Marion Singer. I thought about her just a little.

  I went to sleep on the couch at four am, fell off it an hour and a half later and couldn’t get back to sleep. I made coffee as the sun came up, and my crashing about in the kitchen woke Hilde, who came down the stairs yawning and rubbing her eyes. Her hair was all tousled and she had a warm bed smell. She pulled her dressing-gown tight. We drank the coffee sitting on the couch; my clothes were lying around on the floor and the leg brace draped across a chair looked like a cross between a jockstrap and a groin shield. I had a black, gravelly beard and sour breath. She finished her coffee first
and did a quick, professional examination of my knee.

  ‘Sore?’

  ‘Bloody sore.’

  ‘Well, what happened to Michael Caine?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You still don’t know? But I got the impression your job was finished.’

  ‘I think it is. I think my client’s entirely satisfied and I’ve lost enough skin and sleep over the bloody thing, anyway.’

  That day the hospital bill came and I sent it to Mrs Singer. I used the knee exerciser. I limped into town and bought a new walking stick with a rubber tip and a nice swing to it. My patience gave out that evening and I tried to phone Mrs Singer, but there was no answer. She called me the next day. I heard STD bleeps and an urgent note in her voice.

  ‘I want you to come up here, Mr Hardy. I’m at my place on the Hawkesbury.’

  ‘That’s nice, Mrs Singer. Can’t you just tell me all about it on the phone? I’ve got a few accounts to send you, of course.’

  ‘No, no. I have something to show you and we have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘I take it you’re satisfied.’

  She paused. ‘All your expenses will be met in full. I really must see you. As far as I’m concerned, I’m still employing you.’

  That surprised me. I didn’t exactly mind being paid for sitting around resting my leg, reading a bit and having a quiet drink or two, but it added to my confusion. I tried to draw her out on how my erratic activities had pleased her, but she wouldn’t play. She asked me to have lunch with her at the Beleura Waters restaurant on the river. When I hesitated, she suggested that the invitation was an order.

  ‘I can’t drive with this knee.’

  ‘I’ll send a car.’

  What could I say? A Fairlane with a taciturn Scot at the wheel arrived at eleven am and we set off north.

  He didn’t talk well, but he was a terrific driver. We moved smartly against the sluggish flow of traffic down into the narrow streets of Sydney. We got to the river about midday, parked, and I waited for the restaurant boat to pick me up.

  ‘What’ll you do?’ I asked the driver.