The Greenwich Apartments

by Peter Corris

  ‘I could walk right through you.’

  ‘Into a locked door,’ he said. ‘Come on, gents, come on, girls …’

  I gave him the twenty and he almost made a bow. ‘Pay at the door,’ he said.

  Past the photographs, with my foot on the first step, I spun around. ‘What?’

  ‘Pay at the door, arsehole. Ten dollars to make your dreams come true.’

  Smoke and noise drifted towards me as I went down the stairs. There was hardly room to stand between the bottom stair and the door and a man was already standing there. I gave him ten dollars and he pushed the door open. The Champagne Cabaret had taken its decor ideas from a variety of sources; there were Arabian and Chinese touches in the lighting and the wall paintings, a Broadway effect to the stage which was decorated in black and white like a piano keyboard and even a Hollywood western look to the bar and tables. I saw this through the smoky gloom as I pushed towards the bar. Pushed, because the joint was full; people were dancing on a small floor in the middle of the room, spilling over into the area occupied by tables and even putting the people standing at the bar under pressure.

  I eased out of the way of a tightly embraced couple and managed to get to the bar. The music, which had been a sort of pseudo-Glenn Miller swing, petered out. The dancing stopped; a drum rolled and a man in a white dinner jacket came out onto the stage.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Champagne Cabaret is delighted to present—Ricky Gay!’

  A tall person with cleavage and curves and a blonde wig wriggled onto the stage, adjusted a silver lamé shoulder-strap and began to sing ‘Big Spender’. About half the people were interested in the singer, the other half were interested in each other and the booze. Three topless waitresses and the drinkers at the bar kept two barmen in red waistcoats busy. The place was hot and the barmen were sweating; I waited until I caught one of them taking a break to mop his face.

  ‘I’d like to see Mr Darcy,’ I said. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘I serve drinks,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’ll take a Scotch and ice and could you tell me where to find Darcy?’

  He put away the handkerchief and made the drink. His hands were fast and if they were sweaty it didn’t seem to inconvenience him. He put the drink in front of me. His red face glowed under the light coming from behind the bar where there was also a long mirror edged with silver dollars.

  ‘Here’s your drink.’

  I gave him five dollars. ‘Darcy?’

  He gave me two dollars change and served someone else.

  Ricky Gay finished singing ‘Big Spender’ and started to tell jokes. Another 10 per cent of the audience transferred their interest to companions and drinks. There was no music now but a few couples were dancing anyway. If the customer was always right the music would be starting up again pretty soon. I sipped the drink and considered my options: the barman I’d spoken to hadn’t stopped working since. He hadn’t winked or nodded at anyone to let them know about the snooper. He just wasn’t interested. The other barmen and the waitresses looked the same—too busy to care one way or the other. Somehow, I didn’t think I’d get much cooperation from Ricky Gay.

  A sign under a pair of buffalo horns over a doorway said ‘Toilet’. I went through into a passageway that led to a door with a top-hatted silhouette on it at one end and to well-lit, imitation marble stairway at the other. I walked to the stairs; I still had the drink in my hand and when the man sitting at the top of the first flight stood up I raised my glass.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said.

  He was a thickset character wearing a black T-shirt, jeans with a wide belt and basketball boots. He had a big bunch of keys swinging from the belt, too big to be anyone’s actual set of keys.

  ‘Other way, chum.’ The voice was thick North Country British.

  I leaned against the wall. ‘What? What?’

  ‘The pisser’s at the other end of the passage. This’s private up here.’

  I swung around unsteadily, blinking. ‘Doesn’t say so.’

  He came down the stairs confidently, unfastening the keys which were on a snap lock. The bunch was on several rings and looked as if it could be easily converted into a knuckle-duster or a mini-battleaxe. He was only about 30; too much fat bulged out above the belt, but he moved all right. He swung the keys lazily just below my nose. ‘Piss off, chum.’

  ‘Darcy here?’ I spoke sharply and soberly and he was taken by surprise. He should have loaded his fist with the metal and punched but he went for another swing, intending to cut, and was too slow. I dropped the glass, whipped out the .38 and dug it into the midriff bulge. ‘Drop the keys!’ I dug hard as I spoke and he let the keys fall.

  ‘A shooter. Come on …’ He was going to get brave any minute. I brought my knee up hard and slammed it into his crotch. He groaned and sagged; I pushed with the gun and he sank down onto the stairs. He sat on broken glass and swore. He tried to move but I pinned him by putting the gun under his nose.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ I said. ‘You’ve cut yourself. You’re going to have to be more careful. Darcy—where is he?’

  His pudgy face was pale and it looked as if he’d bit his lip to add to his problems. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Up there.’

  I gestured with the gun. ‘Let’s go.’

  He eased himself up carefully, wincing and reaching behind him to pull the glass out. ‘You’re not a cop.’

  ‘No. And you’re not a nightwatchman. Take me up to Darcy.’

  ‘He’ll sort you.’

  ‘We’ll see. Your jeans are in a dreadful state.’

  He went gingerly up the stairs; I followed two steps below and off to one side in case he had some idea of evening the score. He didn’t. He went meek as a lamb along a carpeted corridor to the second of three doors, all of which had ‘Private’ written on them. He knocked.

  ‘Who the hell is it?’ The voice was rough, muffled and annoyed.

  ‘Connelly.’

  ‘Well?’

  I showed Connelly my finger held to my lips. He opened his mouth and I dug him in the ribs with the gun.

  ‘Connelly?’ Less muffled now, closer to the door, but more annoyed. The door opened and the man in the photograph stood there; he’d put on weight and lost hair but he was unmistakably the same man. His white shirt was open to the waist showing a fleshy, hairy chest, tanned like his face and arms. I held the gun low and Darcy looked from Connelly to me, puzzled.

  ‘Couldn’t you handle it?’

  ‘He’s got a shooter,’ Connelly said.

  ‘And this.’ I held up my licence. ‘And this.’ I put the licence away and pulled out the photographs. ‘Tell Connelly here to go and find his keys and clean up the broken glass on the stairs. We have to talk.’

  A woman appeared in the doorway behind Darcy. She was buttoning her blouse and straightening her tight skirt. Darcy saw my eyes flick to her but he could also see the gun now.

  ‘Go on, Kenny; I’ll deal with it.’ Connelly turned and limped away; there was blood all over the seat of his trousers. Darcy looked amused.

  ‘Sorry if I caught you at a bad time,’ I said.

  ‘Hardy, eh? I’ve heard of you.’ He ran his hand over his thinning blonde hair, did up a button on his shirt and then patted his crotch. ‘My fly’s still done up, isn’t it? Could’ve been worse. Come in, Hardy. Come in.’

  9

  I didn’t exactly back Darcy into his own residence at the point of a gun, but I didn’t treat him like my long lost brother either. What we were doing reminded me of an army training exercise—semi-serious. He retreated along the passage and I advanced. The woman circled around in the room we were headed for.

  ‘The gun’s a bit over the top,’ Darcy said. ‘You just had to ask.’

  ‘I asked downstairs. Your staff’s too busy serving watered drinks to be helpful.’

  He smiled at that; he seemed to like smiling. ‘What’s this about?’

  We were in a big living room now
—white carpet, black leather armchairs and couch, glass and chrome bar and other fittings suggestive of the good, idle life. Outside the window the lights of Kings Cross became the lights of Elizabeth Bay and then became the lights of the yacht club and the marina and the boats at anchor. Darcy had done up a couple more buttons on his shirt, had pulled his stomach in and was over at the bar now making drinks. The woman stood beside him; she was tall and thin like a fashion model and with an appropriate lack of expression on her face. She’d got her blouse and skirt straight: she had short, bobbed blonde hair that hadn’t become disturbed by whatever it was I’d interrupted. So she looked fine and that seemed to give her nothing else to do.

  ‘Oh, Jackie,’ Darcy said, ‘this is Cliff Hardy. He’s a private eye.’

  She took her drink and didn’t say anything. Darcy chuckled. ‘You won’t get much out of Jackie. I’ve never been able to decide whether it’s because she hasn’t got anything to say or because she thinks talking’ll put lines on her face. Have a drink, full measure, and put that bloody gun away.’

  I put the gun in my pocket and took out the photograph. I let Darcy put the drink on a table beside one of the armchairs. I hadn’t had a full view of him while he made it and I’ve seen The Maltese Falcon three times. Ever since Gutman drugged Spade I’ve watched how the drinks are made. I put the photograph on the back of the couch beside a woman’s silk-lined trench coat that was thrown across it. Half-covered by the coat was a leather shoulder bag with a nameplate reading ‘Jackie George’ on it. ‘That’s you in this picture, isn’t it?’ I said.

  He had to take a few steps to look. He bent over, didn’t touch it. ‘Looks like it. So what?’

  ‘Know the woman?’

  He looked again and sipped his drink. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Seen her lately?’

  He shook his head. Just then, he wasn’t smiling. His big, tanned face seemed to be deciding whether to set into an attitude of anger or amusement. In the end, it stayed neutral. He glanced across at Jackie who was sitting with her back straight, chin up, knees together, looking out the window expressionlessly. Her stillness and mine seemed to annoy Darcy; he swung around and raised his glass. ‘To Jackie,’ he said, ‘the chatterbox.’ He laughed. ‘Come on, Hardy. What’s this all about. Have a drink, man.’

  I wanted a drink. I went over to the bar and poured some Scotch from the decanter into a glass. Darcy nodded approvingly as I squirted in some soda.

  ‘That’s the way. Now …’

  ‘I want information on the woman in that photograph.’

  ‘Why?’

  I drank some Scotch, considered telling him, but decided against it. It’s all a horse-trade in this business, and he hadn’t told me anything at all yet. ‘Her name is Tania Bourke. Looks to me as if you two were on the way to something here.’ I nodded at the photograph.

  Jackie’s eyes swung towards the couch. Just for a second and with no movement of the head. That was all, but I saw it. Darcy chuckled. ‘I don’t think so. Look, what is this? A few snaps of friends at lunch somewhere? I go to lunch every day. Sometimes I go twice a day, don’t I Jackie?’ He slapped his stomach as if to show the results. Jackie didn’t respond except to finish her drink, stand up straight-legged and go over to the bar to make another. As she passed the couch she looked at the photograph.

  ‘Maybe you know the man who took the picture?’

  ‘Maybe. What is he? Some faggot in a pink shirt?’

  ‘He’s been described as ordinary. Wears a blue uniform.’

  He spread his hands. ‘I ask you. A cop, a parking attendant, petrol station guy? Hardy. I’m getting bored with this. I thought you’d be more interesting to meet.’

  Something about his manner told me he was lying. He was alerted to danger. It was there in the body language—the way he raised his glass and pulled at the knee of his trousers. It was plain in the way he shot looks across at Jackie who’d resumed her statue impersonation. ‘Maybe I can get something out of the Geordie,’ I said. ‘He probably scares the girls to death with those keys but …’

  ‘He’s only been with me a year.’ Relief in the way he said it? I thought.

  ‘Yeah, this goes further back than that,’ I said. ‘Maybe two years, maybe three.’ Jackie took a drink. I stood and collected the photograph. ‘Well, I know you’re lying but it’d be messy beating it out of you.’ I put my glass back on the bar. ‘Jackie’d get blood on her blouse and we’d have Connelly back here with his keys or worse. It doesn’t seem worth it.’

  ‘I think you made a mistake coming here, Hardy.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I enjoyed the show downstairs and the half Scotch. I enjoyed meeting Connelly. Hasn’t been a total loss. Let me tell you, Darcy, you’ve got a lot of admirers.’

  That did alarm him. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Goodnight, Jackie,’ I said. I left them looking at each other as I crossed the room and opened the door. It wasn’t much of an exit line but it would have to do. At least I’d discomfited Darcy and made Jackie move her eyes. And I’d had a drink. I felt like an under-achiever, but the coat and bag suggested to me that Jackie wasn’t staying and therein lay possibilities.

  No sign of Connelly in the hall or on the stairs. A few spots of blood though. The glass had been cleaned up. I went through the club, where the dancers and drinkers had taken control again, and up the stairs to the street. Exits and extrances are a little hard to find in that part of the city. Buildings can lead from one into another and you can come out half a block from where you went in. Not so with the Champagne Cabaret though. I prowled around the block, checking lights and doors, and couldn’t see any cunning variations on in-at-the-front and out-through-the-back. I lurked in my car in the laneway behind the building and when Ricky Gay, wearing a leather jacket and jeans, was picked up by a fat man in a Mercedes sometime around 1 a.m., I was sure I was in the right place.

  They came out about half an hour later—Jackie and Connelly. She was wearing her trench coat and she trotted along as far away from Connelly as she could get. He looked around, stared at doorways or the steering wheels of cars. What he didn’t know was that if you want to watch a place from a car and you don’t want to be seen, you watch from the passenger seat or the back—where I was. They got into a white Volvo and headed east, Connelly driving.

  He drove cars better than he intimidated and I had trouble keeping in touch in the back streets as he wove through the light traffic and caught the amber lights. I managed it though and was nicely positioned behind a couple of other cars as he turned off on the Darling Point side of Rushcutters Bay Park. It’s top dollar country—big, well-maintained places crowding each other to compete for the fine view across the water to the city, and for the harbour breezes. And you could bet that any apartments would have security systems that’d hold up the SAS. More worrying were the cul-de-sacs which are common around there. Try following someone down a dead-end street and not look conspicuous and see how far you get. But the Volvo didn’t get into the short streets with the blank endings; it turned into the heartland of the Point where the streets twist and turn but all go somewhere. It stopped in front of a big apartment block positioned between two mansions which were hidden behind palm trees and other luxuriant growth.

  I drove past, made a tight turn and came back quickly along a high road that ran parallel to the other. From there I could see over the mansions to where the Volvo was parked, and the steep steps up to the apartment block. I stopped the car and focused my professional snooper’s night glasses. Connelly escorted Jackie to the spotlit doorway of the apartments, where she used a key and went in without a nod or a thank you. There were eight storeys to the building, perhaps 30 apartments. A few lights were showing but it was clear where Jackie had come to rest—lights blazed in a couple of fourth-floor rooms suddenly and I thought I could see the movement of a curtain as she went out onto the balcony.

  The Volvo moved off and I didn’t try to keep it in sight. What I was looking fo
r was a public telephone, hard to find in that high-rent, high-mortage district. When I did find one, at a crossroad that accommodated a tiny shopping centre, the compensation was that the directory, A to K was intact. I found George, J. listed with the right address and rang the number.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jackie?’

  ‘Yes. Who’s this?’ So she could talk, three words consecutively was definitely talking.

  ‘This is Hardy. We met tonight.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Not anger in her voice—fear.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not watching you or anything. I followed you and Connelly to your place but now I’m miles away.’

  ‘I … I can’t talk to you.’

  ‘But you want to, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t. What …?’

  ‘What do I want? Information about Darcy. What’s his full name?’

  ‘Lionel. No … I can’t …’

  ‘Tell me about the woman in the photograph then.’

  ‘I didn’t know her.’

  ‘Why did you react the way you did?’

  ‘Jealousy. I’m going to hang up.’

  ‘Wait, you were there that day but you didn’t know what was going on. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Between him and that bitch Bourke? Yes.’

  ‘Who took the picture?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You do, Jackie. This is important. A couple of questions and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t involve you no matter what happens.’ Liar, I thought. Bloody liar. This was one of the shitty moments.

  ‘How many questions?’

  My mind teemed with them. When had she last seen or heard of Tania Bourke? Where was the photograph taken? Who were the other people? Who was the photographer? ‘Two,’ I said.

  ‘You promise?’ she breathed, scarcely audibly.

  ‘Yes.’ Shitty, very shitty.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Who was the photographer?’

  ‘Joe Agnew took the picture. That’s one.’

  ‘A-g-n-e-w?’ I spelled the name.

  ‘Yes.’