by Peter Corris
‘You work a long day,’ I said.
‘I’ve got ends to make meet,’ she said. ‘No sign of your bloke so far, eh?’
‘No.’ I looked at my watch. ‘I can’t give him much longer. Have to get back to Sydney.’
‘Wish I could come with you. But my husband and two kids might object.’
I laughed. ‘Well, I’ll be back.’
She mimed shock. ‘You keep away from me. If he doesn’t show before you leave and comes in later, d’you want me to give him a message?’
I thought about it. ‘Why not?’ I gave her my card and ten dollars. ‘Tell him to give me a ring.’
‘Ooh, a private eye. Maybe I will come to Sydney with you.’
‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.’
‘Your glass is empty. You’ve paid for another one. What’ll it be?’
‘Middy of light.’
‘That’s right. You’re driving.’
She gave me the drink and went about her work. Back in the smoky bar, where the noise level from the pokies, the drunks and the pool players was rising, I looked around for the stocky redhead with no luck. I left the pub and reached my car with only ninety minutes to get to Alexandria. I was only a couple of blocks away when I saw the flashing blue light in the rear vision. The police car drew alongside and I pulled over.
Two uniforms. Both youngish. One stayed in the car, the other fronted, gestured for me to lower the window.
‘I believe you just left the hotel, sir.’
‘That’s right.’
He produced the bag with the mouthpiece. ‘Blow into the tube, please.’
I knew what was happening. Barton had put the word out. I’d had twenty-five ounces of light beer over a three hour period. Safe enough, but maybe not with nothing to eat except a packet of crisps. How light is light? How much soak-up is there in crisps? I accepted the device and blew.
He examined the crystals. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Just. Drive carefully, Mr Hardy.’
Things were very different at the brothel when I got there a little after eleven. Quite a few cars were parked nearby and, instead of letting me in, the gate remained closed and the receptionist said Phil would be out to see me. As he came out a taxi pulled up and a woman got out. Not Kristina. She was at least 185 centimetres tall in her heels and her hair added a bit to that. The elegantly tailored coat opened to reveal a generous figure in a tight red dress. A silk scarf did the job of concealing the Adam’s apple but the breadth of shoulder was a giveaway. She gave me a winning lip gloss and mascara smile.
‘Shy, darling?’ A hand with scarlet fingernails touched my sleeve.
‘I’m waiting for Phil.’
She came closer, still smiling, and the hand moved to my crotch. ‘Wasting your time, sweetheart. He’s straight. I, on the other hand . . .’
‘Evening, Roberta,’ Phil said from behind the gate. ‘Don’t bother the man. He’s here on business.’
Roberta pursed her lips and pecked me on the cheek. She shrugged; her breasts bounced and the gate swung open. She went in and Phil came out. He was in his nighttime work clothes—Italian suit, blue shirt, dark tie. He drew in a deep breath as if he needed fresh air and then fished out cigarettes and lit one. He offered me the packet and I shook my head.
‘Would you believe? It’s a no-smoking knocking-shop.’
‘Is she here?’
‘Not yet. I wanted to get a few things straight.’
Roberta’s scent hung heavily in the air. ‘Like what?’
He blew a plume of smoke. ‘I asked around about you, Hardy. You come up okay. A man of your word, sort of.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘Just thought I’d tell you I’ve got some insurance. Tape of you giving me money, you with Roberta . . . See what I mean?’
‘Clever,’ I said.
‘Careful. When this cunt arrives you take her away and do whatever you like, but she was never here. Understand?’
What I understood was how good he was at what he did. From the way he stood, balanced and steady, I could tell that the cigarette could be flicked in my face in an instant if required, and the blow would be a nanosecond behind.
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘What you have to understand is that I’m likely to be back when my business with Kristina is all over.’
‘Look forward to it. She should be here any minute.’ He’d only taken one drag on the cigarette. It hadn’t been for smoking. He dropped it, pressed the buzzer and went through the gate.
I went back to my car and waited. Fifteen minutes later a taxi drew up and a young woman got out. She wore white trousers, white high heels and a white leather coat. There was a white band in her hair. She paid the driver and tripped across to the gate. She buzzed and leaned close to hear the intercom. She straightened up, hitched up her white shoulder bag and looked ready to break something, anything.
‘Kristina,’ I spoke quietly and approached in as non-threatening a manner as I could.
Anger had brought a flush to her face. Phil had been right. She looked much older than her years, but the white outfit lent her a kind of vulnerability, no doubt deliberately contrived. ‘Who the fuck are you? What do you want?’
‘I’m a private detective. Your mother hired me to find you. She’s worried about you. With good reason I’d say.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘If I do, what d’you do next? I’ve had a word here.
You’re out.’
‘There’s plenty of places.’
I shook my head. ‘Not for you. Not with me along telling them how old you are.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘You should’ve stayed at school. You need a wider vocabulary. So what d’ you reckon? I can’t see you in William Street, doing it in the backs of cars.’
‘You say she hired you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Can’t be paying much.’ She opened her coat. She wore a tight, low-dipping white lacy top. No bra. Her nipples poked through the lace. ‘Maybe we could come to a different arrangement.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Man of steel. Well . . .’
A car drew up. ‘Let’s continue this a bit further away. I don’t think Phil’d like us blocking up the access.’
She said, ‘You scared of Phil?’ but she moved with me away towards my car.
‘Under the right conditions, no. Under the wrong ones, yes.’
It’s a technique—keep ’em talking, keep ’em moving.
‘What would the right conditions be, then?’
‘Probably him drunk and me with a shotgun.’
Kristina laughed, still moving. A nice, musical laugh. Very commercial.
‘We’re out of the same box, Phil and me, ex-army, but he’s got youth on his side.’
‘You’re not so old.’
We were almost to my car. ‘Knock it off, Krissy,’ I said. ‘I—’ She burst into tears. ‘Don’t call me that. I’m not Krissy.’
‘I was just trying . . .’
She sagged against the car and suddenly looked her age, or close to it. Her heavy eye makeup had run and in brushing at her mouth she’d spread her lipstick up her cheek. The arriving client took a quick look at us, checked his stride but then continued on. Not a good Samaritan tonight.
She sniffed, rummaged in her bag for a tissue and cleaned up. ‘I might as well go and see her,’ she said. ‘See what’s on her mind.’
I nodded. ‘I’ll drive you.’
She gave me a fierce stare. ‘I’m not saying I’m going to stay!’
I shrugged. ‘Between you and her.’ I unlocked the passenger door. ‘Get in.’
I got in and started up. ‘Put your belt on.’
‘Yes, Daddy.’
‘Knock it off. And do up your coat.’
She pushed out her chest. ‘Don’t you like them?’
I didn’t answer and got moving. She closed her coat, buckled on her belt and sulked.
8
‘Okay. Where would that be?’
‘Paddo.’ She gave me the street and the number.
‘Bit of a jump up from Tempe.’
‘I was slumming.’
Puzzling. Somehow she didn’t seem like the runaway I’d been expecting from her mother’s description, the photograph, the T-shirt, the Tempe housemates. Her clothes were expensive. The multiple earrings and the nose-ring were gone. She wore elegant, stylish earrings. Her makeup, before she smudged it, had been perfect and a quick glance showed me that her nails were manicured and perfectly painted.
‘What’re you looking at?’
‘I’m wondering how you got to be this flash so quickly.’
‘You think I’m flash?’
‘Don’t start. You know what I mean.’
She shrugged, reached into her bag and took out cigarettes.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Fuckin’ puritan.’
‘Light that and I’ll take it and burn a hole in your coat.’
She sighed, dropped the packet back in the bag and stroked the leather. ‘Know what this cost?’
‘No. Do you?’
‘Have you got a woman?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Probably not, from the look of you. Or some daggy droob in a tracker and flatties.’
I did the rest of the drive in silence. She stared out the window at the cars and the lights and the people as if they had nothing to do with her. I wound through the Paddington streets and pulled up outside a smart terrace—three storeys, white, black wrought iron, crafted front garden. ‘Are you sure this’s you?’
She did a quick repair job on her face, opened the door and stepped out. ‘Surprised, aren’t you? Come on, but give me some space. Not quite sure who’ll be home.’
I stayed a little ahead and opened the gate. She glided past, brushing against me, and I wondered if she was going to start playing games again. We went up the steps and she rang the bell. I waited a metre away. Footsteps sounded and the door opened. She was as quick as Cathy Freeman. The coat was open, the tits were showing and she was screaming as she pushed me away.
‘Help me, help me. He’s hurting me.’
The guy who came through the door was big with muscles bulging inside a too-tight T-shirt. He was also very fired up. Kristina ducked away and he was on me before I could react. I just managed to stop his punch from landing squarely but the weight of it, catching my shoulder, rocked me and I hit the wall. My head bounced off the bricks and I went down with noises booming inside my skull. That little bit of the world spun and kept spinning. I felt cold bricks behind and cold tiles underneath me, and I knew I had to close my eyes in order to take a breath—couldn’t do both at the same time.
When I decided I could breathe and open my eyes without everything echoing and spinning, I found the man who had hit me standing over me and sounding apologetic. Couldn’t be true. I closed my eyes again.
‘Jesus, mate, I’m sorry. Are you all right?’
‘What?’
‘She was bullshitting. She took off.’
‘Took off, where, how?’
‘Fuck, she just ran down the steps through the gate and jumped into this old heap outside and took off.’
Although it hurt and I knew it wasn’t going to do any good, I felt in the pocket of my jacket for the keys.
‘She took my car,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t live here?’
He shook his head and, with my vision clearing, I had a closer look at him. Thirtyish, balding, built like a bull. I felt I should know his name but couldn’t bring it up. Almost, but not quite. For such a formidable figure he suddenly looked embarrassed, sheepish, vulnerable. I eased myself up, sliding against the brickwork, until I was at eye level with him. I turned my head to the open gate and the blank space in front of the house.
‘You assaulted me. She stole my car.’
‘Jesus, mate . . .’
Another vocabulary-poor individual, although the other one had had tricks up her sleeve. She knew this address and the resident. The picture was becoming clearer. ‘We’d better have a talk,’ I said. I took my wallet out and showed him the licence. ‘A place like this’d have a couple of bathrooms, right? And, Jason, a bloke like you’d have something on hand to drink.’
The name had come to me in a flash—Jason Garvan was an almost legendary rugby player. A fan of the Ellas in the past, I’d followed rugby in spurts and it was hard to open a paper a few years back without seeing his picture. He switched from League after a dispute in the club and then came into the big money when rugby went professional. Not so prominent now. He didn’t look happy that I’d recognised him, but he was smart enough to know he had to play along with me.
We went into the house, which was done up in the way a professional decorator treats an inner-city terrace. They start out looking like mine when the yuppies buy them and they end up looking like this—painted, carpeted, polished. The front room off the passage served as a kind of den-cum-bar-cum-memorabilia room. Trophies galore in a couple of cabinets, photographs showing Jason with celebrities and team photographs on the walls.
He went behind the bar. ‘What’ll it be?’
‘Brandy.’ I sank into a chair and felt the back of my head. My hair was matted with blood but the wound had stopped seeping. Better not to lean back against his leather upholstery just the same. He gave me a tumbler half full of brandy and poured a solid vodka for himself. I took a swig. Smooth.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make trouble for you, although God knows I could.’
‘You’ll have to report your car stolen, but.’
‘Could’ve happened anywhere. I’m talking about you having sex with an underage female and assaulting me.’
‘Jesus, mate . . .’
‘If you say that again I’ll change my mind. Just shut up and let me sit here for a bit and think.’
He wasn’t used to men he outmeasured and outweighed telling him what to do, but he squatted on a stool, sipped his drink and watched me. After a while he asked me what I was working on. I told him and it didn’t make him any happier. Quite the opposite—he poured another drink.
‘That’s not going to do your speed any good.’
He was about to tell me to get fucked but thought better of it. I drank half the brandy and felt steadier but the headache was building.
‘Got any painkillers?’
Of course he did. He nodded and left the room. The mobile in my jacket pocket rang. I answered and Kristina’s voice came through clear and crisp.
‘Your crappy car’s in Oxford Street near the barracks. The keys’ll be under the front seat. I hope you’re not too badly hurt. Leave me fucking-well alone.’
I put the phone back in my pocket, downed the rest of the brandy and grabbed the bottle from the bar. I walked out leaving the front door open. Give Jason something to think about apart from tackles and knock-ons.
Every step I took along the streets of Paddington sent shock waves through me and I wished I’d stayed for the painkillers. I found the car exactly where she said it’d be and sat in the seat quietly for a minute to make sure I was up to the drive. My bag was there, untouched, also the books and other bits and pieces. A card with my mobile number on it was crumpled up on the seat. The keys were under the seat. I stopped at the first open chemist, bought painkillers and washed them down with a paper cup of water while the pharmacist looked shocked at the number I took.
‘You’ll shred your liver,’ he said.
Oncoming lights dazzled me, rough patches on the road shook me and the analgesics on top of the hefty dose of brandy made me light-headed. I drove, gritting my teeth and forcing myself to focus on every movement. I thought if I allowed myself to drift into auto-pilot mode I could finish up in Parramatta or wrapped around a lamppost. If the cops found
me in this condition, with the open bottle of brandy in the car, I’d be off the road for six months.
No maudlin thoughts about not wanting to go home this time. My door, my hall, my kitchen, my bathroom had never looked so good. I stripped, had a shower and cleaned the head wound with alcohol swabs. I hadn’t eaten since the pub lunch, so I slapped together some leftovers and microwaved the lot into a sort of bubble-and-squeak. I ate a few mouthfuls and then threw the lot up into the sink. I knew I was slightly concussed and couldn’t remember the treatment. I filled a plastic bag with ice cubes and held it to my head. Better.
I sat in the living room wrapped in a towelling robe, holding the plastic bag to my head. Some detective. I’d caught my quarry and let her get away by completely misreading her. Something had happened to Kristina between Tempe and when I’d met her. That sounded right—at least I was thinking again. Where had the clothes and accessories come from? She couldn’t have gone far even in Paddington at that time of night, dressed as she was, without courting trouble, so how had she been able to ditch the car so soon? She could have ducked in somewhere and called a cab on her mobile. Maybe. But where was she going? On balance it looked to me as if she had a provider, a protector. A pimp.
I went upstairs to bed wondering how I was going to communicate this to her mother. I crawled in, still wearing the robe. My last thought was that I’d been propositioned three times in the course of the day. Two had been commercial and the other was only in fun.
9
I phoned Marisha Karatsky and said I had news of her daughter although I hadn’t exactly located her.
‘You’ve seen her? Spoken to her?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s well . . . not sick?’
‘No, but I have to talk to you.’
She worked from her home in Dulwich Hill. The building had been a large warehouse now divided into apartments. Security door. I buzzed the number she’d given me. She had a top level spot—large floor space, open plan kitchen and living and three bedrooms. Pricey, depending on when she bought it. Maybe she rented. Expensive either way. She invited me in and brewed up some coffee. She wore a long smock over black flared trousers. As a rule small people shouldn’t wear flared pants, but she managed to look good. The heels helped. We sat at a low table with the coffee mugs. A large window gave a wide view of nothing in particular. It let in a lot of light and my head still ached. She saw me wince.
