The Empty Beach

by Peter Corris

  ‘Thanks. I have to tell you this, Annie. I met a man named Greenway and he told me you were dead.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  It came out, bit by bit, over the rest of the coffee and a lot of cigarettes. Annie had spent some time in England, come back to Australia clean but had drifted into the smack world again. She’d struggled though.

  ‘I was maintaining when I met Gareth,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Using, but in very small amounts and very disciplined—so many hits a week, so many no-hit days, a clean week once a month. People go on like that for years, decades, it’s not so bad.’

  Then she met Greenway at the clinic where she got her syringes and worked part-time as a sort of minder, baby-sitter, coffee maker. She was attracted. They had a hot affair. Then he dropped her.

  ‘Was he an addict?’ I asked.

  ‘He acted like one.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ I spoke more sharply than I intended and she bristled.

  ‘Fuck, I don’t know. He didn’t shoot it, he said he smoked and popped. I never saw him do anything but grass. But he was edgy, like I feel now when you snap like that. What’s the matter with you? What did I say?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Nothing. Tell me about what happened between you.’

  ‘Usual thing. Lots of grass, lots of wine, lots of fucking and late night TV. That’s how I came to mention you. We’d been watching some private eye movie and I told him about the time you … handled that narc and the others at Palm Beach. He was interested in that.’

  ‘Have you ever been in Southwood Hospital, Annie?’

  ‘Yeah, for a while.’

  ‘He told me that’s where he met you.’

  ‘Bloody liar. He’d lie about anything. It was after that, a good while after.’

  ‘What was Southwood like?’

  ‘Bloody awful. Scary.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Every way. You should’ve seen some of the kids there. They picked them up in the streets. Real horror cases. I don’t want to talk about it. Shit!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I left my stuff with those creeps. Shit!’

  ‘Maybe we can do something about that. Tell me about what happened with you and Greenway.’

  ‘He was living in this place at the Cross. One day he was there and the next day he wasn’t. Nobody knew where he’d gone. I went down hard. I broke my own rules—hit up every day. Then I went on the methadone.’

  ‘What about those characters that chased you in here?’

  ‘I was scoring in the flats down the end of your street, by the water.’

  ‘Are you going to try maintaining again?’

  ‘I don’t know. Shit, I believed him, you know? We had a great time and I thought he was for real. Fuck it. Who cares? I’d better go.’

  It was after ten o’clock by then, late enough. I made us a couple of white wines and sodas and we sat in the backyard with the drinks and the cat. I explained to her why I needed to find Greenway and she seemed to understand, although she wouldn’t talk about the hospital. I asked her where she was living and it sounded like a series of couches and floors and sleeping bags.

  ‘Did you score in the flats?’

  She shook her head.

  The sun and the wine relaxed her. Her hands stopped shaking. She told me a bit about her time in England. She laughed, remembering good times and perhaps not giving up hope for more. I asked her to stay for a few days and she accepted. Might need your help to find Greenway, I thought, but I knew I needed the company more. So now I had a junkie in the house. I also had the cat around a lot more, seeing as how it likes the smell of cigarette smoke.

  6

  I WAS shaving when I realised why I’d reacted so strongly to what Annie had said. He acted like one. Greenway had told me he was an actor. It was a lead of sorts. I finished shaving and went out to ask Annie some more questions. I found her on the bed in the spare room, curled up under a blanket. Her jacket was on a chair and I went through the pockets. She had about twelve dollars and some change; a driver’s licence, Medicare card, cigarettes, make-up, aspirin, tissues. No key. No syringe, no heroin.

  I left her a note telling her how the shower worked, how to bolt the rickety back door and where the outside key was hidden. I told her not to worry about the gas smell which has been around for years without doing any harm. I told her to make herself at home and that I’d be back later. I was trusting her with a TV, a VCR and an old stereo unit which were all insured. I took the gun with me.

  I used my spare car key, promising myself to get a copy cut, and drove around the block. No sign of the red Mazda which didn’t mean a thing but made me feel better. The morning was cool and clear with a promise of heat in the middle of the day. I drove to Darlinghurst where Curtain Call Casting has an office in one of those streets that has been half-blocked, declared one-way and sprouted wattle trees.

  Rose Moore was at her desk poring over correspondence and sets of photographs. I let my shadow fall across the desk. Rose looked up and smiled.

  ‘Hey, that’s better. Now I can’t see her double chin.’

  ‘You’re in a cruel game, Rose. Dealing in people’s imperfections.’

  ‘So are you. If you’ve come to hire an actor for one of your dodges again you can forget it. I nearly got the sack over that.’

  She was referring to a little operation I’d mounted to discourage a standover man who was making things difficult for some reasonably respectable poker players. When he encountered me and the stuntman I’d hired through Rose the next time he dropped in, he lost interest in cards. But the stuntman’s agent had heard about it and Rose had been roasted. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I neglected the worker’s compensation angle. Life’s got to be so complicated.’

  Rose looked something like a gypsy with wild dark hair and big liquid eyes. She accentuated the look with eye makeup, earrings and low necked blouses. Now she lifted the neckline and looked prim. ‘Not if you do your job and don’t cut corners.’

  I laughed. ‘My job is cutting corners, you know that. But today all I want is a look at that casting book—the mug shots.’

  ‘Male or female or in between?’

  ‘Male, definitely.’

  She reached behind her to a bookshelf and took down the thick volume. I perched on the edge of her desk beside a stack of glossies of a young woman with hair like Tina Turner, a mouth like Joni Mitchell and eyes like Anne Bancroft.

  ‘What does she do?’ I said.

  Rose lit a cigarette and blew smoke at me. ‘Anything, darling. Anything at all.’

  I found him on page 139—Gareth Morgan Greenway. Born London 12/2/59; arrived Australia 1971; educ. Sydney High School, NIDA; 184 cm, 75 kilos, quick change artist and magician; swims, dances, sings; plays piano and guitar.

  A gaunt, dark face with hooded eyes brooded from the page. Greenway had appeared in some plays I’d never heard of, a couple of low budget films and in television shows I’d never seen. His agent was Hilary Fanshawe, 111 Roscommon Street, Woolloomooloo—a walk away.

  I thanked Rose and left the office. The legitimate parking place I’d found was too good to surrender—there probably wasn’t another like it in a four-kilometre radius. I walked over William Street and down the hill into the ’Loo. Jimmy Carruthers grew up there and used to eat ice cream outside the pubs while his mates were boozing. Jimmy was on his way to a world boxing title—a real one.

  Then it was all narrow houses and stunted factories—blank faced buildings, mean, aggressive streets. But government money has been well spent for once; the houses have been scraped back to the sandstock bricks, the wrought iron has been restored, the tin roofs are painted. The factories have been torn down, leaving more open corners to the streets, or converted into Housing Commission flats that don’t clash with the original feel of the place. Rehabilitation only goes so far; there are st
ill winos in the park which the concrete railway bridge keeps constantly in half-shadow.

  Hilary Fanshawe’s office was in a narrow terrace house. The door was barely a metre from the street; there was no knocker or bell but a polished hunting horn was mounted on the wall beside the number. I pressed a button on the horn and heard a trumpeting blare inside. It was the sort of sound you didn’t want to hear more than once. The door gave a click and a pleasant voice came through the horn.

  ‘It’s open. Second on the left.’

  I went into a narrow passage; five long strides would have taken me to the stairs, three took me to the second door which was open. The woman who sat at the desk facing the door was huge. She wore a black T-shirt; her jowls and chins settled down near its neckband. All this flesh was pale; she had green eyes and dark auburn hair.

  ‘Yes?’ It was the same voice I’d heard through the horn but sweeter and more musical. The Garbo of voices. I felt like looking around for the speaker but the fat woman’s mouth was moving. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Are you Hilary Fanshawe?’

  She nodded. I wanted her to speak again to hear that sound.

  ‘My name’s Hardy. I’m a private detective. I’m trying to get in touch with a client of yours.’

  I held up my licence and ID photo. She waved me to a chair in the small room. There were photographs everywhere photographs could be put, also magazines and film posters. ‘Bail?’ she said. ‘Maintenance? Loan default? I assume you’re some kind of process server?’

  ‘No. That’s not much in my line. Do a lot of your clients have that kind of trouble?’

  ‘Enough. I don’t suppose it’s something good then—an inheritance? I could use a client with some bread. I need investors.’

  ‘Don’t we all. No, Miss Fanshawe, I don’t deal in good news much either. He came to see me and then matters became rather confused. I want to see him again to straighten things out.’

  ‘Someone should straighten your nose out. How many times has it been broken? If you were on my books I’d list it. Can you act?’

  ‘No. Can Gareth Greenway?’

  The name hit her pretty hard. She dropped the pencil she’d been fooling with and lifted her head so that some of the loose flesh around her neck tightened. ‘Who?’

  ‘You heard. Gareth Greenway, one of your clients.’

  ‘The one that got away.’

  ‘What?’

  She sighed and the flesh slackened again. ‘He could’ve made it, I always thought. He was really good. He lifted a couple of the things he was in from shit to hopeless.’ She smiled; her teeth were as beautiful as her voice. ‘That’s a joke, Mr …?’

  ‘Hardy, Cliff Hardy.’ I think I gave my full name because I wanted to hear her say it.

  ‘You’re supposed to laugh, Cliff. God, it’s a double joke really.’

  ‘I’m sorry, you’re going to have to explain it to me.’

  She shrugged. ‘He was good, as I say. With a bit of luck and persistence he could’ve got good parts, made a success. I’d have been pleased for him and pleased for me.’

  ‘But he gave up acting?’

  ‘Threw it in.’ She smiled and showed those excellent teeth again. There was a chuckle with the smile this time. ‘So that joke was on me. I hardly made a cent from him. The second joke’s sort of on you.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Gareth gave up acting to be a private detective.’

  7

  SHE really laughed then. The flesh on her upper body shook and quivered and tears ran from her large, green eyes. ‘I’m s … sorry,’ she said. ‘It just struck me as funny. God, I’m losing my grip. You must have noticed that the phone hasn’t rung and no one’s called since you arrived.’

  ‘It hasn’t been long,’ I said. ‘You’re probably in a rough patch.’

  ‘It’s nothing but rough patches.’ She wiped her face and rearranged it into something like a smile. There was a charming, witty woman in there somewhere behind the blubber. ‘Ah, well, I can always go back to voice-overs.’

  ‘Is that what you did before agenting?’

  ‘Yes, and after acting. After I got too fat. I suppose everyone was something before. You were something before you were a private eye.’

  I didn’t want to get into that. I’d been a happily married organisation man; sometimes it sounded good. ‘Yeah. Have you got an address for Greenway?’

  ‘Are you going to cause him trouble?’

  ‘He’s caused himself trouble already.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘You could call it … impersonating a lunatic.’

  She clicked her tongue. ‘Gave you a performance, huh?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Told you he was good. Impersonating a lunatic, what a part. Well, I don’t owe him anything.’ She pushed her swivel chair back and swung to her left. Her hand on the file card drawer was narrow, long-fingered and white. I’d heard there were people who made a living from having their hands and feet and ears photographed. I thought maybe she could do that as well as voice-overs, but I didn’t say so. She pulled out a card and read off the address, ‘1b Selwyn Street, wait for it—Paddington. He shared with someone. No phone. Can you imagine that? An actor with no phone? I had to send him telegrams.’

  ‘I can’t imagine a detective with no phone. D’you think he was serious about that?’

  ‘He showed me the ad he’d put in the paper.’

  ‘What paper?’

  ‘The Eastern Suburbs Herald, I think it was. It was something like Sherlock Enquiries, no, that’s not it. Greenlock Enquiries. Private. Confidential. That sort of thing. Greenlock, you see?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Holmes. Jesus. Did the ad give the Paddington address?’

  ‘Sorry. Don’t remember.’

  ‘When was this?’

  She consulted an appointments diary on her desk. ‘Three months ago. January 7.’ The phone rang and she almost snatched it up. She crossed her fingers and looked at me. I crossed my fingers too. She lifted the phone. ‘Fanshawe Agency. Roger, how nice. Yes, I think so. Bruno? He’s available I think.’

  I mouthed ‘Thank you’ at her; she showed the first class teeth in a wide smile and I left the office.

  It was uphill from the ’Loo to Darlinghurst and I was sweating when I reached my car. I drove to Selwyn Street where there were no parking places. I circled the block without finding a space so I double-parked outside number lb which was a tiny terrace in a row that had been crimped and cutied like a poodle. A solid knock on the door brought a response from the balcony above me.

  ‘Yes? What is it?’

  I backed out onto the footpath. A young man in a singlet and jeans was leaning over the railing. Sunlight glinted on one long, dangling earring.

  ‘I’m looking for Gareth Greenway.’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘This is the address I have.’

  ‘He moved out when I learned that I had it.’ There was a bitter edge to his voice; he sounded like the people I used to interview who’d let their insurance lapse before the fire that wiped them out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What d’you think? AIDS. Gareth’s not the carrying and sharing type.’

  His hair and beard were dark stubble over thin, tightly stretched skin. Bones protruded around his neck and along the tops of his shoulders. He was deeply tanned but he still looked sick.

  ‘When did he go?’

  He shrugged and folded his arms. The upper parts of his arms were fleshless, thinner than the forearms. ‘A couple of months back.’

  ‘D’you know where he went?’

  ‘No. Bondi someplace. That’s all. Have you got a cigarette?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ His skull like face went back into the gloom.

  Sometimes I wish I’d get a case that would take me west, to Broken Hill. As it is, I always seem to be heading east, down to the sea. I drove to Bondi Junction wher
e the office of the Bondi Tribune is located. Hilary Fanshawe thought the paper Greenway had advertised in was an Eastern Suburbs rag and it seemed likely that he’d put the ad in a few papers in that area.

  Everything is new in Bondi Junction and seems to be getting newer. Some of the people are old but they look as if they belong somewhere else. I had no trouble getting permission to look through back numbers of the paper. These sorts of papers are grateful for any interest shown in them. A bright-eyed young woman took me to a room which was glass on three sides. I was the only reader and everyone who walked in the corridors on all sides looked at me. No chance of making any sly excisions.

  I found the ad in the issues for the first two weeks in January. Greenlock Enquiries—discreet & determined. Negotiable rates. At least he didn’t claim experience. I wrote down the telephone number that accompanied the ad, thanked Bright Eyes and left feeling that I’d earned lunch and possibly dinner.

  I had a sandwich and coffee in the mall and then I phoned my home number. No reply. Greenway picked up his phone on the third ring. ‘Greenlock Enquiries.’

  There was plenty of background noise in the mall to help and I deepened my voice a bit and spoke slowly. ‘Mr Greenlock, I …’

  ‘No, no. My name is Greenway. Greenlock is just the name of the agency. How can I help you?’

  ‘Mr Greenway. I have a matter. I need some help.’

  ‘Yes. Mr …?’

  ‘Barton, Neil Barton. I’d like to see you. Are you free now?’

  ‘I am. The address is Flat 3, 12 Curlewis Street, Bondi. Can you find that all right?’

  ‘Is it near the beach?’

  ‘Very near. A few doors away. My office is above a supermarket.’

  ‘I’ll find it. Thank you. Thirty minutes?’

  ‘That’ll be fine.’

  I hung up feeling slightly foolish about the charade. Neil Barton was an uncle of mine, an old Digger. I hadn’t seen him for twenty-five years and his name just jumped into my mind. Weird. I found myself thinking about tricks of the mind and psychiatry as I headed for Curlewis Street. I was looking forward to talking such things over with Gareth Greenway. At the back of my mind was some concern about Annie. I told myself that was foolish—she’d been handling herself in a rough world for a long time and she was a survivor, like Uncle Neil, who’d come through Tobruk and other tight spots.