O'Fear

by Peter Corris

  I rang off after telling her I thought it would be sorted out soon, which was more optimistic than truthful. But I was intrigued, which is a way of being optimistic.

  There’s a bolt on the inside of the front door of my house. It had been thrown and my key wouldn’t open the door.

  ‘Who?’ The voice was soft, immediately behind the door.

  ‘Hardy, who else? O’Fear?’

  The bolt was drawn and the door opened quietly. O’Fear eased himself out and beckoned for me to move into the shadow at the front of the house, where the wisteria hangs down from the top balcony. He was white-faced, moving stiffly and carrying a gun.

  ‘What’s happened to you?’

  ‘To me? Nothing. But this idiot followed my cab from Botany to your place. I spotted him in the first half mile. He came in with a shooter and I had to tap him on the head. I hurt my side a bit doin’ it.’

  ‘What idiot?’

  ‘He’s inside. A young feller, maybe about thirty, with a twelve-year-old brain.’

  ‘Unconscious?’

  ‘He was. He’ll be comin’ out of it soon. I can hit so as to knock you out for a precise time, y’see. This was a half-hour tap at the most. I allowed for his size.’

  As always with O’Fear, it was difficult to tell truth from bullshit, but there was no doubt that he was an expert in violence. My first thought was that we had a hostage.

  ‘I was thinkin’ you might make a few private enquiries of him,’ O’Fear said, ‘although he looks like a tough little nut. Perhaps I should do it meself. I’m rather tirin’ of these fellers havin’ a go at me.’

  ‘That’s brilliant. What’re we going to do? Torture him?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinkin’ of bribing him with my share of your ill-gotten gains, I can tell you that!’

  ‘Perhaps it’s to do with your other trouble?’

  O’Fear shook his head. ‘That hasn’t the mileage in it. It’s not a shootin’ matter at all. No, it’s to do with Todd all right. Look, Cliff, he’ll be stirrin’. I put him in your little falling-down bathroom …’

  From the back of the house came the sound of glass breaking.

  O’Fear waved the gun. ‘Christ, he’ll be out and away.’

  I shattered the existing record for getting from my front door into my car. I drove to the end of the street, turned through the new block of flats and stopped on the rise. If he went over the back fence he had to come out down the street from where I was. It would take him a few minutes to negotiate the fences and gardens, but he would come. There was no other way.

  I was right. He dropped over a fence onto the pavement about the same time as a car drove up the street in my direction. He was a small man, dressed in dark clothes but with a white stripe on his jacket sleeves. He shrank back against the fence as the car went past. Then he ran.

  I drifted down the street, keeping well back and not showing any lights. He rounded the corner into Glebe Point Road and sprinted down the hill towards the water. I saw him take the turn into the avenue beside the park before I put my lights on and followed. I picked him up under the light where the street bends. He tore open the door of a car, gunned the motor and took off. I kept as far behind as I could, delaying on the turns and hugging the kerb until he was back on the main road. I relaxed a little then, allowed a car to pass me to serve as cover and tried to pick out something distinctive about the car I was following. There was nothing distinctive, no broken tail light or racing stripe, but the number plate was KNM 223.

  He drove badly. His reactions were slow and he was indecisive; probably the results of O’Fear’s gentle tap. But he managed to get into King Street and turn off towards Erskineville. This was harder for me—narrow streets, some of them one-way, relatively unknown territory. He threaded through between the factories and terrace houses and dark, empty looking lots, still driving erratically, clipping the footpath more than once. His right indicator flashed and he turned sharply into a wide concrete driveway. A man stepped out of a lighted booth, consulted something the driver showed him and waved the car ahead. A heavy metal gate slid open, and KNM 223 was home at last.

  I pulled in to the kerb and killed my lights. It was a long, narrow street, poorly lit. The side I was parked on was mostly taken up by the backs of factories. Opposite me and a bit further on, the metal gate was set in a high brick fence. Higher than that of Brown & Brown, almost prison-like. I felt in the shelf under the dashboard and located the half bottle of rum I keep there for emergencies. Emergencies are fairly few and the bottle was almost full. I took a swig and looked at the brick fence. The guy in the glass booth was bent over, reading or eating or playing with himself. Anyway, he wasn’t looking at me. I took another drink and squinted until I shut out the peripheral light and could read the words painted on the gate: ATHENA SECURITY PTY LTD.

  I let out a rummy breath in a low whistle. Athena was a big security firm, comparatively new. It advertised extensively and aggressively and boasted that it had the latest technology in all departments of the game. I get a lot of the security business propaganda in the mail—brochures, magazines, sales pitches—and Athena had loomed large in the material in recent times. It’s a very competitive field. I glance at the stuff, some of it I file, most of it I throw away, but one unusual fact about Athena had stuck in my mind—the head of the company was a woman.

  18

  I drove around the Athena establishment, taking in the high walls, signs of electronic equipment and the glow that suggested spotlights within. The wall was lower along one side which occupied a section of a neater residential street. It was almost as if Athena didn’t want to look too institutional among the tidied-up terraces and wide bungalows. Image is everything, or nearly everything. Still, it wasn’t the sort of place you storm with a Smith & Wesson .38 shouting: ‘Freeze! Nobody moves until I get some answers to these questions.’

  The rum was warm and comforting inside me as I drove home. I was looking forward to some coffee and plain food. I’d even be able to manage a conversation with O’Fear now that we had something solid to talk about. It was good to make a connection. I could check out Athena and its boss lady, talk to everyone all over again from this new angle. What might Anna Carboni and Bob Mulholland know? I remembered Mulholland saying Barnes Todd was considering moving into the security business. All very promising. And the cut on my hand had stopped throbbing.

  I parked in the street behind mine, put the .38 in my pocket and approached the house warily. No sense in taking chances now that things were starting to break. I hoped O’Fear had not found the scotch or had brought his own. A few lights were on, as per normal. Nothing was lurking in the shadows. I opened the door and stepped in with the gun in my hand and knowledge of the terrain on my side. The house was quiet. I walked right through it, upstairs and down. There were no gunmen or baseball bat swingers. No obscene messages scrawled on the walls. There was no sign of O’Fear either.

  A soggy, bloodied-up towel was lying in the bath. The louvre window was a wreck, and there was blood on the floor and outside on the bricks. Look for a small man—and he had to be small to get through the window—bleeding from the hands and head. I cleaned the bathroom roughly, threw the towel in the laundry basket along with my own shirt and underwear and had a shower. I kept the .38 within reach and, as I washed, I tried to remember when I had last used it. Some time ago, I thought. Good. Keep it that way.

  I sat down with a strong black coffee and my notebook and reviewed the day’s confusing developments. O’Fear had gone voluntarily; there was no evidence of a struggle, and he would have managed to leave some sort of sign even if they had caught him unawares and marched him out. But no note either. Gone where, with whom? My supposed ally, who also represented $10,000 on the hoof, was wandering about with a knife wound in his side, doing God knows what and in possession of a pistol.

  Added to that, I had the new information on Barnes Todd—art charlatan with his wife’s connivance, and war criminal. I felt in less tha
n complete control of the situation.

  I got to the office early and rummaged through my files for material on Athena Security Pty Ltd. I had kept a coloured brochure and a form letter suggesting that independent enquiry agents should consider amalgamating with bigger concerns. I had written something rude across the letter. The managing director’s signature at the bottom was a big, bold scrawl—Eleni Marinos. There was a postage-stamp-sized photograph of her beside the letterhead. She had pale skin, blonde hair and light eyes and looked about as Greek as Grace Kelly.

  According to the brochure, Athena was the ‘newest, most innovative security firm in the Southern Hemisphere’. It could supply guards, patrols and electronic protection. It had an armed delivery division, a strongbox deposit facility and a security courier service. It could provide enquiry agents, bodyguards, drivers, pilots and debugging experts. Paranoia Paradise. A close and productive relationship with the state and federal police was implied, along with the certainty of insurance cover and legal advisers of an eminence it would be too vulgar to detail.

  I looked at the cool, calculating face of Ms Marinos and wondered. I was sure I had seen her in the flesh, but I couldn’t pinpoint the memory. I occasionally went to the functions thrown by the various arms of the security business. At them I had encountered some sharp minds and classy talkers, although after a while the display of, and concentration on, money tended to depress me. Anyway, the roll-up was overwhelmingly male, and Eleni Marinos would have stood out like a diamond in a dustbin. She didn’t look the type to walk her dog in Jubilee Park or drink in the Toxteth. She wouldn’t exactly fit in at the Journalists’ Club where I occasionally went with Harry Tickener. I had never met her—I’d have remembered the name—but I had seen her. Where?

  I used the Birko to make instant coffee. I had some instant Turkish I’d been meaning to try and this seemed as good a time as any. I poured the boiling water over the pulverised grounds and obeyed the instructions by adding some sugar. I stirred the cup with a spoon that Helen had lifted from a cafe in Darlinghurst after becoming exasperated at the lousy coffee and inflated prices. I sipped the thick, sweetish brew and, the way a smell or a sound can, the unusual taste triggered the memory. I’d seen Eleni Marinos in a Greek restaurant. Her escort at the time had been Barnes Todd.

  I couldn’t remember exactly when it was. More than a year, because I’d been with Helen. We both liked Greek food and this place in Paddington was our favourite. We had been to a film, and the hour was late. Barnes was just leaving and I hadn’t even had a chance to speak to him. But that’s where I had seen her—across a smoky room. I remembered her white skin standing out amid the general swarthiness, and the way she had tossed her blonde hair as she said something to a waiter. In Greek, presumably. Then she had clasped Barnes’ arm and they had gone out.

  I stared at the letter and the brochure as I tried to make something out of it. The brochure carried a picture of one of the silver armoured cars that had appeared on the streets in the last few years. They carried a big green ‘A’ on the sides and inspired confidence. The guards wore silver jackets, which the men in the game I knew—ex-cops, ex-soldiers, ex-footballers—wouldn’t have liked. But maybe they had a new breed of armed guard these days. Maybe they were art school graduates or had degrees in communications. All the more reason not to amalgamate.

  I phoned Barnes Enterprises and got Anna Carboni.

  ‘You’re better?’ I said.

  She sniffed. ‘No, but I’m back. I’m glad you called. Bob said you mightn’t be needing that work I was going to do after all.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, that’s right. Sorry to deprive you of the overtime.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I need the time in bed more than the money right now. Does that mean you know what happened to Mr Todd?’

  ‘Not really. Is Bob there?’

  I waited, fiddling with the new dressing on my cut hand. The cut had healed well. I tried some more of the coffee and couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. When Mulholland came on the line, I asked him if O’Fear had been there that day.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I understood he was going to your place last night. What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve … lost track of him. Did he get anywhere with those logs?’

  ‘He said it must’ve been a pretty tight run. Fifteen to twenty kilometres the round trip.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. Hold on … Anna’s waving at me.’ I pushed the coffee aside. ‘She’s miffed,’ Mulholland said. ‘She reckons he made a hell of a mess searching the office.’

  ‘But did he find anything?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did he take anything away with him?’

  ‘Look, brother, I was busy. He called a cab. Said he was going to your place. He went. I wasn’t keeping tabs on him. I just don’t know.’

  ‘Okay, I’m sorry. I know you’re busy, Bob. A couple more questions. Did Barnes ever have any dealings with Athena Security?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t know the details. Michael Hickie’d know more about it.’

  ‘Right. What about Eleni Marinos? Did Barnes ever mention her?’

  Mulholland said the name and there was a pause. I heard muttering. When he spoke again his tone was cautious, guarded. ‘Anna tells me he knew her before he was married,’ he said.

  ‘Knew her?’

  Mulholland’s voice was thick with impatience. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you gubbas ever got past the Blue Mountains. Barnes and Eleni Marinos had an affair. Serious, Anna says.’

  Michael Hickie’s secretary, Jenny, was still in a job. She told me that Hickie had gone to play touch football.

  ‘It’s the middle of the morning on a working day,’ I said.

  She giggled. ‘That’s when they do it. Michael … Mr Hickie, and some of his friends. He calls it, ah … rebellion as relaxation.’

  ‘Where do they play?’

  ‘Waverley Park. I’m sure you’d be welcome. They’re always looking for extra players.’

  It had rained overnight and the morning was fresh and clear. The traffic moved well along Bondi Road, and I had no trouble locating the duster of professional men’s cars near a corner of the park. Out on the grass a group of men huddled, broke apart, ran, jumped and fell. I parked, walked closer, and Hickie spotted me.

  He waved. ‘Hey, hey, Hardy. We’re a man short. Want a game?’

  I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a clean white shirt, but I had an old T-shirt in the car. The players wore shorts and rugby shirts, tracksuit pants and singlets. I looked them over carefully—no giants or obvious psychopaths. I signalled ‘Yes’ to Hickie, jogged back to my car and changed.

  The next forty-five minutes I spent throwing and running and slipping over on the damp turf and laughing. It was a good-natured game among men who were past their physical best but not giving up without a struggle. They ran hard; some of the body contact was accidental, but not all of it. I was faster than a few, heavier than a few others and I held as many passes as I dropped. Hickie and I were playing on opposite sides and we had one heavyish collision. I thought he could have avoided me, but he didn’t, and he came off slightly second best. No ill-feeling. I finished the game well and truly winded, mostly as a result of a last mad dash, and with a slightly bruised shoulder despite the soft going. I remembered games I had played as a kid—under blazing skies on grounds baked rock hard, and in blizzards and ankle deep mud. They were tough games—I’ve still got a scar where some teeth went through my right ear. Back then, as kids, we were proving something to the world. Now we were mostly proving things to ourselves.

  After the whistle, Hickie introduced me properly to the men who had been Dave, Ben, Russ, etc., for the purposes of the game. They smiled and wiped away sweat and most of them drove off, but Ben produced a cold six-pack of Heineken, and we leaned on the bonnet of his Celica for a spot of mateship.

  ‘Ben’s a surgeon,’ Hickie said.

  I recalled Ben’s preci
se throwing and catching.

  ‘You’ve got the hands and eyes for it,’ I said.

  Ben tilted his bottle. ‘Yep. Long may they last.’ The other stayer, whose name I didn’t catch, tossed his empty at Ben, who plucked it out of the air effortlessly. ‘See you,’ he said.

  We chatted while Ben drank the spare bottle. After he’d gone I wiped myself off with the T-shirt. Hickie was tossing the ball from hand to hand.

  ‘You didn’t come here to play football,’ he said.

  ‘No, but it was fun. I’ve got questions.’

  We squatted on the grass.

  ‘Have you seen or heard from O’Fear since yesterday?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What d’you know about Barnes’ dealing with Athena Security?’

  Hickie wiped sweat from his face and drank from his bottle. Ben had had two, mine was long gone, but he still had an inch or more left. ‘That’s a bit tortuous. Athena’s a strange concern, a bit mysterious. They approached Barnes for an investment, then for his custom, and eventually made him a takeover offer.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He considered the investment and using their services. Then he had ideas of going into security himself, so he backed off. He had a high opinion of their operation, though.’

  ‘What about the takeover?’

  ‘I think he’d sooner have lost a leg.’

  ‘Do you know anything about Barnes’ relationship with Eleni Marinos?’

  Hickie nodded and finished his beer. ‘It was a very hot affair. Before he met Felicia, but not long before. I don’t know the details but Barnes ended it. It was a very rough patch for him. He drank a good bit and … you know …’

  Of course I knew. Anybody who had been through the relationship mill knew only too well. The indecision, the resolutions and the turnings-back. Sheer hell and we keep on doing it because, as Woody Allen says in Annie Hall, we need the eggs. Lucky are those who don’t need the eggs. Or maybe they’re not lucky. I helped Hickie tidy up the bottles and the cardboard wrapper and the soft drink cans. We stowed the rubbish in a bin and stood together, looking across the grass in the direction of the sea.