Win, Lose or Draw

by Peter Corris

  He stood, hooked up his jacket and left the room. I followed him down the stairs and out the door. He was adjusting his clothes as he went and would’ve been close to his immaculate self when he reached the street. He lifted his hand and a silver Mercedes purred up. He got in without looking back.

  For all his polish, George D’Amico was just a flashy hood for my money and there was no way I was going to help him garotte Lance Harris or deep-six him, or do whatever else he had in mind. He’d forced my hand but that was all he’d done and he didn’t know a thing about it.

  I phoned Gerard Fonteyn and arranged to meet him at his office that afternoon, giving me time to assemble some photos, voice records and my thoughts. I found twenty minutes to go to a café, eat a sandwich and wash down my medications with a white wine spritzer. I was increasingly playing fast and loose with the meds, because I’d recently been having misgivings about their side-effects and I knew I’d have to come to a decision about the regime soon.

  Fonteyn hadn’t even asked me why I wanted the meeting. His faith in me was almost embarrassing and I had to hope what I’d tell him wouldn’t dent it too much. I was escorted to his office immediately on my arrival and, after greeting me, Fonteyn announced to the employee, a businesslike thirtyish woman, that he wasn’t to be interrupted for anything short of a nuclear attack. She smiled and left us.

  ‘It’s a long story and not a very pleasant one,’ I said.

  ‘I have just one question before you start—is she alive?’

  ‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure she is.’

  ‘Go on.’

  I gave him the latest, chapter and verse. He was composed throughout, comfortable in his shirtsleeves with air-conditioning keeping the big room at an agreeable temperature. His expression tightened a few times when I referred to his children’s resentment of his expectations, and to their drug-taking. And, at a guess, he didn’t think much of tattoos and body piercing; but he was in the cosmetics business and must have been aware they were fashionable. Both were correctable anyway, as he would know. Fonteyn was the sort of confident man whose life experience had taught him that things could be put right. I was relying on that.

  When I’d finished he leaned back in his chair and waggled his fingers, an oddly frivolous gesture for him. ‘As I get older,’ he said, ‘I find a drink or two sort of loosens the knots in the brain when I have a problem. What d’you think about that, Cliff?’

  ‘I agree—one or two, as you say.’

  He produced a bottle of cognac and two glasses from a deep drawer in his desk and we moved to the comfortable chairs. No toast. Just an exchange of nods and we drank.

  ‘Would you have told me everything if this D’Amico hadn’t threatened to disrupt your plans? Not that I know what your plans are.’

  Typically acute of Fonteyn, that question. ‘I had trouble deciding.’

  ‘Do you believe that he only wants Harris and has no interest in Juliana?’

  ‘It’s possible. On the other hand, he might consider that she was implicated in the death of his brother, or he might think to seize the opportunity to extort money from you now he’s found out who she is and knows that she comes from money. It’d show.’

  Fonteyn winced. ‘Therefore it’s imperative that he be kept ignorant of where and when Foster is to meet … this Trudi.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The cognac was slipping down smoothly. Fonteyn said, ‘You’re very protective of Foster. You could have pressured him.’

  ‘He’s very fragile, potentially volatile, and already under a lot of strain. Any more might crack him. I should tell you my idea is simply to get hold of the girl by physical force if need be and get her back for you to deal with. To bring that off, Foster will have to hold his nerve and play his part. As I’ve told you, he did pretty well the other night and I need him in that frame of mind.’

  The drink didn’t seem to be helping Fonteyn. He pushed his glass away. ‘We’re talking about my children but I feel as if they’re people I don’t know. Why not tell the police when you know the time and venue? Have the place surrounded and … overwhelm the situation?’

  ‘Do you think I’m trying to hog the glory?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean …’

  ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you, but it’s not quite like that. Lance Harris is using the girl as his advance guard. Foster encouraged her to think he could be useful in marketing the drugs Harris has got hold of somewhere along the line. Maybe on tick, pending the sale of his boat. But Harris is an experienced drug dealer and general outlaw. When Juliana goes to meet Foster he’ll be super-alert for signs of interference. Put enough cops in there and he’ll spot them and abort the whole thing before it even starts.’

  ‘It sounds as if you know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Not precisely, but in broad terms, yes. And something else: if I went to the police and convinced them, which isn’t certain anyway, Foster and Juliana end up as druggies and the story explodes in the media. You’ve trusted me, and what I want in return is for you and yours to come out of this clean. You’ll have a hell of a big job on your hands then.’

  He tossed off his cognac. ‘That’s true. All right, what am I to do?’

  I’d made up my mind. ‘A hard thing—just wait and hope.’ He nodded. ‘Do you need more money?’

  ‘No, there’s been too much money washing around already. Remember the deal about the interview with your daughter, though. That has to hold.’

  He nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Too soon for that,’ I said.

  I’d watched for a tail ever since I left the office, thinking D’Amico might be interested in where I went and who I saw. But he was out of his territory and probably didn’t have the manpower, which was a comfort. When I was sure I was clear I drove to the Forest Lodge apartments intending to reassure Foster that his father was aware of what was happening and understood that he had to change as much as Foster did. Unless all filial feeling had gone I thought this would bolster Foster’s confidence and resolve.

  I parked and buzzed the apartment. No answer. Then I rang Foster’s mobile and was informed that it was out of service. I’d told him to keep it charged. The manager of the apartments lived on site and buzzed me in. He met me in the lobby.

  ‘Hi, Cliff? What’s up?’

  Joe Chambers was an old Glebe resident who claimed to have played tennis there with Lew Hoad as a boy. He’d inherited the house where the apartments now stood and had been happy to accept the offer of a large flat and to take on the management as part of the deal for selling to a developer. He was Glebe old school, remembering the days when publicans kept a club under the bar, which was why he’d welcomed the arrangement with me.

  ‘Gidday, Joe. Seen anything of my guy lately?’

  ‘I have, you know. He brought a young bloke back with him after one of his walks and they went up to his room for a while and then they left together.’

  ‘What sort of young bloke?’

  ‘That’s it. Your Charlie Foster was really smartening himself up. New clothes and I’d say a spring in his step. But this bloke was a real scruff with that look, you know?’

  ‘What look, Joe?’

  ‘I’d say he was stoned when he arrived and that they were both stoned when they left. I’m sorry, Cliff, I’m not a nursemaid.’

  24

  Joe let me in to Foster’s apartment and the signs were all there—the place reeked of marijuana smoke and there were roaches in a saucer. There was the wrapping for a six-pack of Jim Beam and cola and a crumpled pill foil. There was also a folded sheet of notepaper with my name scrawled across it. I put it in my pocket.

  ‘Sorry, Joe. I thought he was on the mend.’

  ‘Not your fault, it happens, but it’s a pain in the arse. Reckon he’ll be back?’

  ‘I hope so. I’d be glad if you’d let me know if he shows up.’

  Joe wasn’t happy but he agreed. I told him I’d settle with him as soon as I
knew what was happening. He wanted to know what the note said but he could see from my attitude that I wasn’t going to tell him.

  ‘Have to air this place out,’ he grunted. ‘And it looks like they’ve spilled booze on the carpet here and there.’

  ‘Leave it till I know more. I’ll pay for the cleaning.’

  That mollified him slightly even if it didn’t satisfy his curiosity. He stalked out of the flat and we parted on terms very different from the way we’d started. That was a worry for the future but not as much as the thought of Foster out drifting around in what I wouldn’t be surprised if the media started calling the ‘drug community’.

  It was raining and I got wet getting back to the car. It didn’t help my mood. Sitting damply behind the wheel I unfolded the note. The looped writing had ignored the lines, cases and punctuation, and the paper had a brown stain in one corner.

  cliff sorry couldn’t face her or gerard or you tried but fucked up beer garden waverley hotel tomorrow night 10 good luck foster

  It could’ve been worse. He might have just gone up in smoke without a trace, but it left me some serious worries. One was Foster himself. There was despair in the few scrawled words and people who went back onto drugs after even a short drying out often overdosed.

  Suddenly, much of what I’d said to Gerard Fonteyn no longer held true. I’d implied that Foster was safe and that I had a straightforward plan. Foster wasn’t safe. He had an enemy in Jake of Coogee and George D’Amico. If D’Amico got hold of Foster through his drug contacts—possible if not probable—and forced him to talk, there went my plan.

  Through the rest of the day and most of the day following I kept trying to contact Foster with no success. He hadn’t come back to Forest Lodge and I had no idea who his bad Samaritan was. I drove to the Double Bay café where I’d seen him but learned nothing.

  I filled Hank in on what had happened and he appreciated the seriousness of it.

  ‘The only thing I can think to do,’ I said, ‘is show up myself. I know what she looks like and the background. I might be able to persuade her to …’

  ‘Dump her boyfriend and her new, exciting life? That’d be pushing it uphill, Cliff.’

  I tried to imagine the scene. We had to assume Harris was scoping the meeting place but would he turn up with the girl? He must know that George D’Amico would be looking for him so he’d need to lie low. He’d also know how unreliable drug negotiations can be with no one knowing quite what pressures the other party might be under. My guess would be that he’d be nearby but not at the meeting. Even if he was there I felt sure Hank could handle him. My problem would be to talk fast and well enough to get her to break with Harris. Would it help to talk about her brother? Would it make a difference to tell her that people, including her father, knew who she was and that she needed protection from George D’Amico and the law for her association with the man who killed Paul D’Amico?

  It was thin ice—banking on both D’Amico and Harris being out of the immediate picture. But it was the only thing to do: play with the cards I held. I rang Colin Cameron.

  The Waverley hotel was in Bronte, well back from the beach but elevated so that it afforded views of the water from the beer garden and a pretty good glimpse of the Waverley Cemetery, where a good deal of Sydney history was buried. I learned this from the hotel’s website, which made everything look very glossy, although I suspect it concealed a certain amount of the inevitable wear and tear from the salty air and corrosive winds.

  The beer garden was the traditional set-up with an entrance through the hotel but also up a flight of steps from the street. Easiest way in, easiest way out. Benches, tables, chairs and umbrellas and private nooks shielded by head-high trees in big wooden garden boxes. The website provided day and night views and it looked as though the subtle lighting out in the after-dark beer garden could allow all sorts of things to go on. Whoever had chosen it, Harris presumably, knew his stuff. That didn’t raise my confidence.

  Hank and I arrived forty-five minutes before the appointed time. Cameron turned up in a taxi a few minutes later. I made the introductions and we went over the moves. My job was to identify the girl as soon as she appeared, approach her and persuade her to talk to me.

  ‘Sorry, Cliff,’ Hank said, ‘but what’s Colin here for?’

  That was Hank, covering all the bases. Cameron looked sober and composed.

  ‘Colin’s been involved since the beginning,’ I said. ‘He’s got a sort of right to be here, an investment, as it were.’

  Hank studied Cameron in his shorts, flapping sports shirt, baseball cap and heavy glasses. Being an expert in such things himself, he noticed the miniature camera in Cameron’s shirt pocket and nodded.

  ‘Colin’s going to show her the photo he took of her on Norfolk Island and the one of the woman who was killed up in Coolangatta. The idea is to scare her if my initial spiel doesn’t work.’

  ‘And if she runs?’

  ‘We follow her.’

  We drifted in, Hank and me first and Cameron a bit behind us. He went straight to the bar. Hank and I positioned ourselves where we could easily be seen by anyone coming in through either entrance.

  It was mid-week and the pub was only doing fair business inside and out. There were about twenty tables and five benches, all half-occupied. Possibly a third of the patrons were women and at least half of them were smoking, but many fewer men were. The way it is. The music out there was muted, the way it should be.

  Cameron returned with a schooner and started doing things on his phone. Hank got a bottle of white wine and we waited. The time ticked by. The appointed time came and went. If anything was going to happen it was going to be late. How late? I checked my watch out of the corner of my eye.

  A shadow fell across the table as a tall, broad-shouldered man came close. He wore a silk shirt, a loose linen jacket and stone-washed jeans and all he needed to be a stand-in for the mature Errol Flynn was for his dark hair to be more slicked back and the moustache to be more clipped.

  He sat. ‘Hello, Hardy,’ he said. ‘I’m Lance Harris. Who’s your friend?’

  25

  Harris produced an empty wine glass with the flourish of a conjurer. He poured himself a solid belt of white and raised the glass.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised, Hardy. Blokes like you leave a trail behind them and people love to talk. Or can be made to talk.’

  Harris was a quite well-preserved fifty or a dissipated forty. Just the beginnings of jowls and the neck scrawniness that marks the years like the rings on a tree. He was clear-eyed but hadn’t hauled hard on too many ropes lately; the loose shirt covered a softening belly.

  ‘Where is she, Harris?’ I said.

  Harris was unfazed. ‘How many people have you got here, Hardy, apart from this big hunk?’

  ‘One more. Enough.’

  Harris shook his head and moved, shifting in his seat. ‘Not enough by a long way, sport. I’ve got a .22 popgun here under the table pointed at your essentials, more or less. One silly move from you or Sampson here or a gesture to the other one and you’re hurt where it really hurts and I’m gone.’

  His voice was steady, he was stone cold sober and I realised too late that he’d used his left hand to pour and handle his drink. He could have been bluffing but the odds were against it.

  I put both my hands on the table. ‘What do you want, Harris?’

  He smiled. ‘What we all want—a great big, juicy win, just one. You’re in line for it and so am I.’

  ‘When did you find out what she was worth?’

  ‘Before I answer that, tell your friend here to inform the other one what’s happening and then they can both piss off.’

  ‘Better do it, Hank,’ I said. ‘He’s holding the cards. I don’t think he’s as cocksure as he seems; he’s got some deal in mind. I’m sorry and I’m embarrassed but I’ll have to deal with it myself now.’

  Hank said, ‘You sure?’

  ‘He’s sure,’ Harris said.
‘Now do as you’re told.’

  Hank finished his drink and got up. ‘Hope to see you again, Mr Harris.’

  ‘I doubt it. Go, Yank, go!’

  Hank took his time but eventually he and Cameron left the beer garden. My mobile rang as soon as they’d gone.

  ‘That’ll be your Yank mate. Tell him to go home. I don’t want to shoot you but I will if I’m interfered with. The stakes are high but it doesn’t have to come to that.’

  I did as he asked.

  Harris nodded. ‘Very smart,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll just have a quiet drink and let the air clear.’

  He brought his hand up from under the table to show a small, chrome-finish, pearl-handled pistol.

  ‘A lady’s gun,’ he said, ‘but for the sake of your pride I wanted to show you I wasn’t bluffing.’

  I poured us both some wine. ‘How about an answer to a couple of questions?’

  He raised an eyebrow stagily. ‘A couple, now? Fire away.’

  ‘Why did you have her set up the meeting here with her brother? Was it ever for real?’

  ‘Good question. It was, just for a bit before I worked out who she was and your part in things. I needed some capital.’

  ‘After you found out, why go through with it? Why not just approach me directly?’

  He gave a smile, flashing white teeth in a tanned face that had probably helped him with women old and young over the years. ‘Call it a sense of the dramatic,’ he said. ‘And to answer your earlier question, I have to admit it took a while for me to do a bit of research and to decide that this was the best way to go. She made up all sorts of stories and she was pretty convincing. She’s very intelligent and she’s read a lot and I think she enjoyed fantasising. Had me guessing, I can tell you.’

  ‘What about when you got her stoned?’

  ‘I have to put you right about a few things there, Hardy. In the first place, she didn’t look and act like fifteen. Big girl, muscles on her like an Olympic athlete, and she wasn’t a virgin either.’