The Greenwich Apartments

by Peter Corris

  I found her on the second try in the other building. She was small and thin and her face was creased and rumpled like an old passionfruit. She could have been 80 or maybe she was just a 60-year-old who’d been busy. The purple hair was like a kindergarten kid’s wild drawing; she had bright blue stuff around her eyes and her caved-in mouth was like a sunset—yellow teeth and bright red lips.

  ‘Yes?’ She teetered on high heels and had to hang on to the door for support. She’d already started, perhaps she never stopped.

  ‘Good afternoon, Madam,’ I said. ‘I believe we talked on the telephone the other night.’

  ‘What?’ She had the door on a chain and was peering up at me through the four-inch gap. I showed her the licence.

  ‘I have to get my glasses,’ she said. She left the door on the chain and I slipped two fingers through and slid the catch free. The door was standing open and I was head and shoulders inside when she got back.

  She laughed. ‘I always do that. Someday someone’ll come in and kill me.’

  ‘You need a gun,’ I said.

  ‘I had one but I lost it. Well, you’re in. Let me see that paper again.’ She hooked on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and squinted at the licence. ‘Private Inquiry Agent,’ she read. ‘I knew one of them once. Way back in the forties. Drank himself to death. Funny thing, I drank just as much as he did an’ I’m still here. Whaddayou think of that?’

  ‘You must have a fine constitution,’ I said. I held up the Rosé. ‘Haven’t retired, have you?’

  ‘No fear. Come in. I have to warn you, I can drink all day an’ all night an’ it doesn’t affect me.’

  ‘You like to talk, don’t you?’ I went into the living room which was full of furniture that all looked too big for her. So did the room itself with its high ceiling, picture rail all around and deep, floral carpet. I went over to the window. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. I parted the dusty Venetian blinds and looked directly down from one storey into the courtyard. The window of flat one in the Greenwich Apartments was directly opposite.

  ‘Feel free,’ she said. ‘I’ll get some glasses.’

  ‘I sat on the arm of an overstuffed sofa, reached across and put the bottle on the glass top of a French-polished table. She came back with two tall glasses—long stems, green tinge, swirling designs cut in the glass. She took the foil off the bottle expertly and poured carefully.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘I’m Ellen Barton, Mr Hardy, and I’m very pleased to meet you.’ She drank and hiccupped. ‘Excuse me.’

  I drank too. At least it was cold. ‘That was a very dangerous thing you did, Mrs Barton, making that phone call.’

  ‘Ellen,’ she said. ‘I thought I was anonymous. How did you find out it was me?’

  I told her. She nodded and finished her wine. She let about half a minute pass before she poured some more. ‘I remember that day. Gee, she was a nice kid.’

  ‘So everyone says.’

  ‘Yeah, a nice kid. So what’s your interest?’

  I told her. She listened but she seemed to have trouble concentrating. She twitched a little inside her blue silk dress with its beaded top and wide, unfashionable belt. The buzzing of a fly distracted her; she seemed to be watching motes in the beams of light that slanted through the blinds.

  ‘Did you see the shooting, Ellen?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wouldn’t have a smoke on you, would you?’

  I produced the silver packet and she pounced on it greedily. ‘Very nice too. You gonna have one?’

  I shook my head. She lit up and puffed luxuriously. ‘Remember de Reszke, in the tins?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah, they were lovely cigarettes. Not like the rubbish they sell now. ‘Course, these are all right.’

  ‘The shooting,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I saw it. That is, I was looking out the window and I heard the shots and I saw her fall.’

  ‘You didn’t see who did it?’

  ‘Not properly. Look, why’re those flats empty over there?’

  I told her about Leo Wise’s plans for the Greenwich Apartments. It was hard to keep her mind on a single subject; I couldn’t tell whether the wine was making her that way or whether she’d be worse without it. She had nearly finished her second glass. ‘Tell me what you saw?’

  ‘A man. That’s all. In the corner. He ran across and down the lane. He …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He jumped over her. Jumped!’

  ‘Would you recognise him again?’

  She shook her head; the purple hair wobbled. ‘Dark. Couldn’t see properly. Bastard!’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Why?’

  She stubbed out the cigarette and poured some more wine. Her hand shook and she spilled some on the table. ‘Bugger it. Know how long I’ve lived here?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Forty years. Think I haven’t seen it before? Shooting? I’ve seen it! You can’t do anything.’

  ‘You did something the other night. You rang the flat.’

  ‘I’d had a few. I felt sorry for her.’

  ‘How did you know I wasn’t the killer?’

  ‘You used a key. Looked like you had a right there. But, he was a tall man, same as you. I like a big man.’

  ‘Mm, well, what happened then?’

  ‘After a bit, ambulance came up the lane. Police. I put out the lights and went to bed. Didn’t sleep much, but.’

  ‘Did the police interview you?’

  ‘Yeah. One came. Told him I was asleep. Didn’t hear or see anything. Look, three, no four people been shot around here. Police never caught one killer. Not one. Have some more plonk, sorry rosey. ’s good.’ She wasn’t the drinker she thought she was, two and a bit glasses, admittedly big ones, and she was awash. Of course, I didn’t know what sort of a foundation she was building on. She lit another cigarette, just managing to get the match in the right place. Forty years, she’d said. I wondered if she could unscramble them.

  ‘Before the girl …’ I began.

  ‘Remember Jack Davey?’ she said suddenly.

  I did remember him. He was the best thing on radio in the days before transistors, the Top Forty, and talk-back. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Hi ho, everybody.’

  ‘ ’s right! ’s right! Hi ho, every … everybody. Ooh, he was a lovely man, Jack Davey.’

  ‘I don’t see …’

  ‘Jack Davey had a girlfriend who lived in that flat.’

  She leaned forward conspiratorially as if the gossip was still hot stuff although Jack Davey has been dead for nearly 30 years. ‘Lovely girl, showgirl or something. He used to come and visit her. Silver hair, beautifully brushed always. And he wore a camel-hair coat. Funny thing, that … people wore coats more. Must’ve been colder. Must be the bomb …’

  She was back in the forties, with her dipso private eye and Jack Davey, and I wanted her in the eighties as neighbour to Tania Bourke and Mr Anonymous. The problem was to get her there. ‘Did anyone else famous live there, Ellen? In the Greenwich?’

  ‘Oh, sure. ’Course, I forget their names. Been a long time. Lee Gordon, he was there, or a friend of him. Anyway, they held parties there. Parties! You shoulda seen them! Packed! You couldn’t squeeze another bottle in.’

  She laughed at her joke and took another drink. Gordon was an entrepreneur who’d brought the big names out from America, Sinatra and the rest, and made a bundle by putting them on in the Stadium. Gordon died and the Stadium was pulled down, but this was better—sixties. ‘Do you remember a man and a woman who lived there, I’d say about two or three years back.’

  ‘Too long ago.’

  ‘Come on, you remember Jack Davey.’

  ‘Jack Davey … lovely silver hair, all brushed.’

  I took out the photograph of the group around the table. ‘Look at this. Do you know her?’

  She reached for the glasses and put them on. A
sip and a puff and she was ready. ‘Ooh, yes. I remember her. Air hostess.’

  ‘That’s right. Do you remember the man?’

  ‘Yes, yes. See him alla time.’

  ‘What? You see the man who lived in the flat? You see him now?’

  ‘No, no, no.’ She slapped my arm. ‘Silly. No, haven’t seen him for years. I mean this one.’ She put her finger next to the face of the blonde man, the one Tania Bourke was giving the big Yes to.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Darcy. Heard one’a the girls call him Darcy. Runs one of the clubs down th’ road. Probably other places too … money, y’see. Still lives there—flat over th’ club. Right? Inna old days they all usta live inna city, th’ people with th’ money. Jack Davey. Now where d’ they live? Inna country. Look at that John Laws. Farmer! Talks about th’ farm onna radio all th’ time. That’s no way for a pers’nality t’be. Jack Davey wouldna known one end of a cow from another.’

  ‘He was the same with horses, I understand,’ I said. ‘Which club, Ellen?’

  ‘Champagne Cabaret. Down the road. Not surprised he knew her. She was a pretty girl.’

  ‘Did you know them? Talk to them?’

  She shook her head. The cigarette was between her lips and ash flew. ‘Naw. They weren’t there much.’

  ‘You remember the man?’

  ‘Bit.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Ordinary. Wore a uniform.’

  ‘What kind of uniform? Pilot’s uniform?’

  ‘No. Don’t think so. No wings ‘n that.’

  ‘Police?’

  More head-shaking, more ash. ‘Like police but different. Blue. I don’t know. Johnny O’Keefe went to Lee Gordon’s parties …’

  She was tired and drunk, ready to slip back among her souvenirs. I swallowed the rest of my wine and she did the same. The bulb-shaped bottle was almost empty. She poured some more wine and ran her fingers over the surface.

  ‘That’s pretty. I’ll put flowers in it. Flowers remind me of funerals, but. That poor kid. I’ve seen a lotta funerals.’

  I stood and took a few steps towards the door. She got to her feet slowly and came across the carpet putting her feet down on the red roses on the carpet, avoiding some purple splotches. ‘Usta be a dancer,’ she said. ‘C’n tell, can’t you? Never lose it. That kid, she moved nice too. I remember how she moved, real light an’ nice. An’ then he shot her …’ She ran her sleeve over her eyes and spread the blue makeup across her forehead.

  I put a card on a table by the door. ‘Ring me if you think of anything. Wait a minute. You said she moved lightly, like a dancer?’

  ‘ ’s right.’

  ‘What about the bag? It must have been heavy.’

  ‘Bag? What bag? She didn’t have a bag.’

  8

  I drove past the Champagne Cabaret on the way home but I didn’t stop. You don’t go into those sorts of places at six in the evening looking for the boss. You go in at midnight and you make sure you’re sober because the odds are nobody else around will be, and that gives you an edge. You take a gun with you too, if you have one, and some backup, also sober if possible.

  I got home about an hour after I said I would. Helen was sitting in a chair reading Democracy by Joan Didion and drinking whisky by Johnny Walker.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. She held up her glass. ‘Join me?’

  I stood behind her chair and looked at the book. It was creased and battered as if it had been in and out of her bag or pocket many times. I judged that she’d put in a day of sitting around and waiting. I touched the top of her head, smoothed down her hair. ‘No, think I’ll have some wine.’

  ‘Ah, you’re going out again later.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be the detective.’ I went through to the kitchen and got the drink. I still had the cassette and the envelope in my hand. Helen pointed.

  ‘Are we watching a movie tonight?’

  ‘This was made by the girl who got killed. I want to see it. Tell me about the flat-hunting.’ I sat down opposite her and pulled the chair closer so that our knees touched.

  ‘Crummy dumps,’ she said. ‘One good one but it costs the earth.’

  ‘D’you have to do it?’

  ‘Of course I do. Look, you’re going to watch a dead woman’s film and then go out to get yourself beaten up or have some depressing conversation. What am I supposed to do?’

  I drank some wine and didn’t speak.

  ‘You hardly worked at all the last time I was here.’

  ‘That’s the way it happens sometimes.’

  ‘How long will this job last?’

  I shrugged. ‘A week. A month.’

  Helen drank some whisky. She sighed, looked at her book and then threw it on the floor. ‘I just don’t want to be a pain,’ she said. We reached out for each other and hugged awkardly, sitting in our separate chairs. We held the hug for quite a while until it turned into something else which we finished off in bed.

  I made sandwiches and took them and some wine upstairs and we ate in bed. Helen told me about the fifteen real estate agents she’d visited and the dozen or so houses and flats. Then she fell asleep.

  It was after nine but still way too early to go to the Champagne Cabaret. I made coffee and put the cassette in the VCR.

  The screen filled with an expanse of water; still, silver water that was suddenly broken by the leaping, cavorting bodies of what looked like thousands of dolphins. They jumped and flapped and the sound of their squeaking, barking calls filled the room. I turned the sound down. The word ‘Bermagui’ came up in deep blue over the fractured silver of the dolphins at play, and some music, mostly strings and drums, accompanied the credits. The film was written, edited, produced and directed by Carmel Wise.

  I’m no movie buff; I’d see about six or seven new films a year and catch another dozen or so on TV and video. I like them fast and funny—Woody Allen, anything with Jack Nicholson, that sort of thing. Carmel Wise’s picture was nothing like Woody Allen, and her hero, a thin, toothy character, was more like Donald Sutherland than Nicholson. But it was a marvellous film. I forgot I was watching for professional reasons: the simple story of a schoolteacher in love with one of his students against the background of a quiet town, caught in the annual tourist rush and under pressure from the moneyed people of Canberra who were buying up the beach, grabbed me and swept me along.

  The acting was fine—underplayed, done without the usual clangers and dead lines that disfigure films made by inexperienced people. The supporting cast were virtually silent which was another plus; they rapped out dramatic interjections while the main players wove the story. Most of all, the filming was terrific: Carmel Wise had resisted the clichéd shots and had got the hard ones—the old house, crumbling and wisteria-covered, but still looking strong and appropriate; the beach party, slowly getting out of hand as the booze flummoxed and confused the kids, turning them from sharp and funny to slow and dull.

  The 90 minutes passed quickly. I felt like applauding when the film finished and I ran the tape back to watch bits again to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. But it was all there—the sure touch, the wit in the use of the camera, the low-key emotion and the economy of the whole thing. As the final credits rolled again—brief, with a lot of the same people doubling up on the jobs, I reflected that Carmel Wise was a real loss to the city, to the nation. I was also sure that she wouldn’t have been interested in pornography. What else? I tried to grab the impressions quickly: strong social conscience, political radical with a sense of humour, more humanist than feminist, scourge of the rich … the name Jan de Vries came up on the screen—‘thanks to Jan de Vries for criticism and coffee’.

  After eleven, time to go. I got my Smith & Wesson. 38 Police Special from the kitchen drawer and checked it for load and action. A quick wash, a fresh shirt, holster harness on, gun away and I was ready. Images from the film floated in my mind as I drove through the quiet streets. A long shot of the beach at night, two cig
arettes glowing in the dark, occupied me along Glebe Point Road and I thought about the love-making between the teacher and the student as I drove up William Street. Then I thought about Helen in my bed and her flat and other beds. As I looked for a parking place I wrenched my mind back to the job. It shouldn’t be too hard. Chat to one nightclub owner about some old pals. He’d probably be only too pleased to help, probably give me a free drink and introduce me to some nice girls.

  The streetwalkers were at their posts on Darlinghurst Road, behaving themselves as the cops walked past, and then laughing and giving their blue-shirted backs the finger. The eating and drinking and game-playing places were open and doing business. The Champagne Cabaret was a few doors from Woolworths which was closed. There were people squatting in the long, deep recess in front of the store—some jewellery sellers, a pavement artist and a man just standing there, doing nothing.

  The man outside the joint was working hard. ‘Come on gents,’ he called, ‘come on ladies, come on all you folks in between. Something for everyone at the Champagne Cabaret. They sing, they dance, they make romance. Come in, sir. Hey, sailor!’ He was about 21 in the body and twice that in the face. He wore a draped jacket with shoulder pads and skin-tight pants, something like the outfit I used to wear myself in Maroubra around 1956. I stopped to look at the photographs mounted in glass cases beside the narrow doorway. Sequinned women clutched microphones suggestively; too-sleek men clutched sequinned women.

  He waved his cigarette in my face. ‘Come right in, sir. Ten dollars an’ you’re through the door an’ in another world. You look like a good sport. Do yourself a good turn.’

  ‘I want to talk to the boss,’ I said. ‘Big blonde guy, isn’t he? Darcy, is that right?’

  He kept waving the cigarette and spoke to the passers-by. ‘Come right in, ten dollars to make your dreams come true.’

  ‘No trouble,’ I said. ‘Just a talk.’

  He looked directly at me for a split second. ‘Twenty dollars to make your dreams come true.’

  ‘You said ten before.’

  ‘That was then, this is now.’