by Peter Corris
‘I had to make an exception in his case.’
Tanner took a small pistol from his pocket and pressed it against my knee. ‘Settle down. You all right, Clem?’
‘Let me ...’
‘No. Maybe later. We’ll see how it goes.’
The driver said, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Tanner said.
‘What’s wrong with Clem?’
Clem was gasping as he breathed.
‘I think he’s got a broken rib,’ I said. ‘Maybe two if I did it right. I’m not sure.’
‘Fuck you,’ Clem gasped.
‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘I’ve had a few. They hurt for a while but they get better.’
‘Shut up, Hardy,’ Tanner snapped.
I did. Part of my chatter was nerves and it was important to get that under control. We were back close to the town now, moving through suburbs and then into an area of shops and light industry. The van turned and went up a lane. It stopped at the back of what looked like a small warehouse. The lane dead-ended a little further on and there were no obvious signs of activity.
‘Out,’ Tanner said. ‘Any trouble from you, Hardy, and you’ll be sorry.’
I nodded in keeping with my stoical decision and took in everything I could see. The thing to do in these situations is to know the ground, spot weapons and, if possible, play some of the people who have you off against each other.
Again, I was in a confined space with three men who had no love for me. One disabled, but one with a gun. No time for heroics. The driver opened a door at the back of the building and Tanner shepherded me in with Clem, wheezing, bringing up the rear.
Boxes stacked high around the walls, windows too dirty to allow in much light, fluorescent tubes glowing. The place had a concrete floor with red paint worn mostly away by feet and time. The man sitting in one of a set of three deckchairs could only have been Tanner’s brother—similar hard lines to his body and face, similar suit. A couple of years older, perhaps, and more controlled.
Joseph grunted something unpleasant I didn’t catch and slumped into one of the chairs. The older, more composed brother gestured for me to sit. He waved away Clem and the driver.
‘Hector Tanner,’ brother two said. ‘You’ve met my brother Joseph.’
‘I’ve had that pleasure.’
‘He’s a smartarse, Hec. I don’t reckon you could believe a word he says.’
Hector looked across to where Clem was crouched, holding his side. ‘What’s wrong with Clem?’
‘Hardy cracked one of his ribs.’
‘I told you to be courteous.’
‘He’s a smartarse who thinks he’s a tough guy.’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘It’s just that Clem was underexperienced at this sort of work.’
Hector smiled. ‘I’m not.’
I shrugged. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Have you any idea why we’ve brought you here?’
I shook my head. ‘You’re not doing so well, Hec. I’m not playing that game. You talk to me to start with, not the other way around. If you’ve got something to say to me, say it.’
‘You’ve been to see Johnnie Twizell.’
‘Have I?’
‘What about?’
I shook my head.
Joseph shifted in his chair. ‘We can make him answer.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Hector said, then turned to me: ‘I expect you’ll be seeing him again.’
‘I expect I will.’
‘I want you to deliver a message to him.’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You know so much you’ve obviously got connections inside the gaol. You can get a message to him any time you like.’
Hector unbuttoned his jacket and relaxed. Good technique to ease the tension. He was right, he knew what he was doing. Joseph was still tightly strung. ‘No,’ he said, ‘he wouldn’t believe a message coming from us through our normal channels.’
‘I can understand that. I suppose Jobe Tanner’s your father. He threatened to kill Twizell.’
‘Well, that’s part of it,’ Hector said. ‘Dad was upset because of what Johnnie did to Kristie, but we don’t feel that way.’
‘Kristie’s a slag,’ Joseph said. ‘She deserved what she got.’
‘Nice,’ I said.
Hector shot his brother an angry look. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that but you’re right. It’s not nice. We’re not nice people, can’t afford to be.’
‘I won’t argue with that.’
Joseph growled and tried to swipe me with a backhander. The numbness in my arm had eased off. I caught his wrist, twisted and he had to fall off his chair to prevent his wrist being broken.
‘Stop it!’ Hector snarled.
The driver had come forward and looked ready to join in but he stopped when Hector spoke.
‘Back off, Rog. Let him go, Hardy. There’s no need for this. Let’s keep it civilised.’
I laughed and released Joseph’s wrist. I got to my feet and turned towards Rog. ‘I owe you one, mate. Want to have a go?’
‘No one’s having a go,’ Hector said. ‘Calm down, all of you. Let’s have a drink.’
He had a briefcase by his chair. He opened it and took out a bottle of vodka. Not my favourite but a drink just then seemed like a very good idea.
‘Find some glasses, Rog, and, Clem, you’d better go and see a doctor. Get your ribs strapped up.’
‘I could do with a drink myself, Hec,’ Clem said.
Rog rummaged in a cupboard and came up with some plastic glasses.
‘Not too elegant,’ Hector said, ‘but a drink out of your boot’s better than none at all.’
He lined five glasses up on the arm of his chair and poured them half full. ‘Just the one for you, Rog, you’ll be driving Mr Hardy back to his car.’
Rog and Clem knocked back their drinks and left the building. Hector handed me a glass. ‘Cheers.’
The three of us drank. It was good, smooth stuff. Hector poured another three generous measures. ‘We’re not going to have any more trouble here, are we, Hardy?’
‘Depends on what happens when you stop being all hospitable and tell me what message you want me to deliver and why.’
‘Fair enough. First, we don’t intend to kill Johnnie or hurt him in any way. Second, tell him that we’re willing to offer him protection and assistance when he goes for the money.’
I found myself repeating what Twizell had said to me. ‘That’s very vague.’
‘He’ll know what it means.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what it means—just to help me be more convincing.’
‘You’re an irritating man, Hardy. A little of you goes a very long way.’
‘I’ve been told that.’
Hector nodded. ‘I’m sure it’s one of your techniques, part of your stock in trade, as it were.’
He was right there. I finished the drink and stood. ‘You’re out of your mind, Tanner. I’m leaving. If Rog comes anywhere near me I’ll put him in hospital.’
His voice had a whip-crack quality. ‘You’ll do as I say.’
‘Involve myself in a criminal conspiracy with a few wannabe gangsters like you? No chance. I’ve got a job to do and I’ll do it. Just that.’
He shook his head mock-sadly and took a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘There’s 385 grams of high grade cocaine in your motel room. One call and the cops’ll be there with the sniffer dogs. I’ve checked on you, Hardy. You’ve done time and been suspended and had your fucking licence lifted. You got it back on a technicality. You walk a fine line. I bet there’s quite a few cops who’d be happy to see you go down—again.’
He had a point. My reinstatement as a PIA came about as a result of a technicality and there were people who were unhappy about it.
‘Supposing I don’t go back to the motel?’ I said.
Hector sipped his drink. Joseph smirked. ‘There’s always your car, your house, your office, your daughter’s fla
t, for that matter. We’ve got a law and order government now, I’m happy to say. Might be a bit hard to convict, you might hang on to your licence if things went your way, but it wouldn’t do much for your business.’
‘What’s to stop me agreeing and then not delivering the message?’
‘We’ll get a reaction from Johnnie when you do. No question about it.’
Joseph must have thought he’d played second fiddle too long. My guess was that he’d done it from infanthood. He was wearing a nice suit as well, after all, if a bit less classy than Hector’s. ‘Stuck for words?’ he said. ‘That makes a welcome change. You’ve got no real choice, Hardy. And what’s your problem? You deliver a message, walk away and never hear from us again, right, Hec?’
Hector didn’t like not being the spokesman. Didn’t like his brother very much, possibly, but he played along. ‘Right.’
I sat down. ‘How about another drink while I think about it?’
‘Why not?’ Hector filled my glass. I held it up and then poured it slowly out onto the dusty cement floor.
‘You prick,’ Joseph said, half rising from his chair.
‘Easy,’ Hector said. ‘Just as a matter of interest, what were you seeing Johnnie about?’
I stood and moved towards the door. ‘It was about money. Maybe a more attractive offer than yours.’
Hector didn’t react but my reward was a worried frown on Joseph’s face. I opened the door and looked back. Hector waggled his mobile phone at me. He wouldn’t unravel under pressure as quickly as his brother, but he was probably the more dangerous of the pair.
I had no idea where I was. I walked down the lane. No sign of Rog, Clem or the station wagon. I went towards the loudest traffic noise and walked until I reached a small shopping centre. I located a taxi rank with one cab waiting. I got in and swore when I was asked where I was going. My mind was on Tanner’s threat. Bluff or for real? I told the driver to take me to the gaol car park. My manner discouraged any friendly chat he might have had in mind. We didn’t exchange a word the whole way.
~ * ~
7
Motel rooms aren’t hard to break into. The room keys aren’t complicated and, with a bunch of people who don’t know each other circulating about, things don’t get noticed. Whoever had been in my room hadn’t tried to conceal the fact; quite the opposite. Lying on top of Lord Jim was a disc of silver foil about the size of a ten-cent piece. I unwrapped it; maybe the white powder was coke, maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t care. I flushed it down the toilet. Then I made a thorough search of the room and my belongings in case there was a second stash which would have been a cunning thing to have done—and Hector Tanner was cunning personified. There wasn’t. I made a cup of instant coffee and sat down to think.
There was no point in going to the police and accusing the Tanners of deprivation of liberty and making threats. They’d deny it and I had no evidence. I could do as they said, give Twizell the message and get on with the job Wakefield had hired me to do. That went against the grain: I was being threatened and blackmailed. I’d been used to threats ever since I’d got into this business but blackmail was something new. I felt in my guts that if I gave in to it I was finished.
The first thing to do was buy some time. I rang the gaol and arranged to see Twizell again. I assumed the Tanners’ contact would let them know that. The next step was to find some way to neutralise the threat. The Tanners were based in Newcastle and I had contacts there—a PIA named McKnight who I’d worked with in the past, and Marisha Henderson, a journalist on the Newcastle Herald who’d been a friend and colleague of Lily Truscott. I rang and arranged to meet Pete in his office at Hamilton that evening.
While Pete was wary, knowing that I needed something from him, Marisha sounded genuinely pleased to hear from me.
‘Hello, Cliff,’ she said. ‘Hey, it’s been too long. What’s up?’
I told her I was going to be in Newcastle that night and wanted to talk to her about Novocastrian matters.
‘Like what?’
‘Bad guys.’
‘Right up my street. Dinner?’
‘Has to be later.’
‘Come to my place. How long are you in this shithole for?’
‘Don’t know. I thought you were glad to get the job in Newcastle.’
‘I was. Now not so much. Anyway, we can talk about it. I hope you’re still drinking. Not one of these born-again teetotallers, are you?’
I said I wasn’t. She gave me the address. A mental picture of her formed as we finished the call—tall, slim and energetic with a slight and attractive overbite. Lily had said she was my type and she was, but at the time Lily was all I needed.
It was 3pm and I had a four-hour plus drive ahead of me. I checked out, paying for two nights, and headed north after topping up the tank and washing down a couple of No-Doz with black coffee. I headed north-east, picking up the Bells Line of Road, keeping a close watch in the rear vision mirror for the first stretch, but there was no tail. I paid a toll for the short run on the M2 and got onto the Newcastle freeway. I played a series of CDs, mostly blues. Hummed along or sang when I knew the words. I was tired from the meeting with Twizell, the confrontation with the Tanners and having to concentrate on the driving, but the caffeine kept me alert.
Pete’s office was in a block on the site of a building more or less demolished by the 1989 earthquake. The facade had been preserved. It was well situated but modest, suggesting that Pete was making a living but not getting rich. He was an ex-policeman, invalided out with a pension after being shot. He was ten years younger than me but looked every day of his age. He got slowly and stiffly to his feet as I came into his office.
‘How’s it going, Pete?’ I said.
‘Up and down. You?’
‘Okay.’
I sat and we exchanged small talk for a minute or two. Pete’s hair was thinning as his body thickened. I knew that he was divorced and that his wife had taken the two children interstate. There were signs of work being done in the office but not a lot. The last time we spoke, Pete had told me he missed the bustle of police life but was still heavily dependent on the force for the jobs they threw his way. He’d had some funny stories back then, but he was much less chatty now.
‘I’ve run up against the Tanners,’ I said. ‘Hector and Joseph.’
‘Be thankful it wasn’t Jobe.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind. Joseph’s not much, but Hector’s got something about him. Would you agree?’
He grunted but didn’t say anything. For what seemed like the hundredth time I sketched the job I was on, the message I was supposed to deliver and the threat that came with it.
‘Couple of questions,’ I said. ‘Do they have the resources to plant coke the way they say—the supply, contacts in Sydney, good break-in people?’
Pete nodded. ‘They do.’
‘I need some leverage against them.’
‘Why not just do what they say? No skin off your nose.’
I didn’t answer. He looked at me and sighed. ‘Of course— you’d reckon they’d own you.’
‘Something like that. Hector mentioned my daughter. That made a difference.’
‘Hardy the hero.’
‘Hardy the pissed-off. You’ve worked here a long time, Pete. You’ve got an in with the cops; you know the scene. You know the informers. Shit, operators like the Tanners’ve got as many enemies as friends, maybe more.’
‘That’s true and I’ve been one. But the smart thing to do is stay clear of them. What they’ve threatened you with is nothing compared to things they’ve done.’
‘Like?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know. I can’t help you. It’s a good thing you didn’t mention the Tanners when you rang. I wouldn’t have been here.’
‘That bad?’
‘That bad. In fact I’m worried about you coming here. You asked about contacts—they’ve got ‘em, all over.’
‘Jesus, Pete, you used—’
‘I used to have more balls.’
I got up. ‘I’m sorry.’
I wasn’t quite sure what I meant when I said that. I had a mixture of feelings. But Pete took it in the worst way. His sagging face went red and a tic started in his cheek. He knotted his hands together on the top of his desk to stop them from shaking.
