Casino

by Peter Corris

  I lay very still and tried to get past the panic. After a time it eased and with it the pounding in my skull. Lying still wasn’t much of a problem. I could have lifted my head a few centimetres but I didn’t want to. I could wiggle my fingers and toes, but that wasn’t a very useful thing to do. I concentrated on slow, deep breathing—hard through the nose alone but impossible. I closed my eyes and tried to let a calming tune take hold of me, a folk song or something from the classics:

  Dook, Dook, Dook

  Dook of Earl, Earl, Earl

  Dook of Earl...

  It’d just have to do.

  I don’t know how long I lay there, but it was long enough for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. I was in an infirmary or clinic. I could see the outline of a sink; the faint light gleamed on polished chrome and the smells were of disinfectant, rubber, bleach. Not reassuring, especially for a hospital-hater like me. I could see heavy gauge pipes overhead indicating that I was well below the surface in a large building. The air-conditioning whispered, the pipes hummed slightly and there were occasional muffled noises coming from far away.

  My stiff shoulder and the arm that had been coshed screamed to be eased; prolonged nose breathing was becoming difficult and I was a mass of itches and tics that needed attention. The panic started to rise again and I tried to chew at the tape across my mouth. I pushed at it with my tongue and turned my head, attempting to rub it against the hard surface I was lying on. No luck. All I managed to do was get a foul taste in my mouth and sink a tooth into my bottom lip. I wriggled my fingers and toes and didn’t seem to be getting much wriggle at either end. Sweat broke out on my forehead and ran down into my eyes. Things were getting worse and it was all my own doing. I struggled for breath and for one second I thought I was going to swallow my tongue. I also thought I was going to shit myself and lose control of my bladder. Couldn’t have that. I’d never done that, not even in Malaya when the bullets were shredding the undergrowth around me.

  Dook, Dook, Dook ...

  The door opened and two men walked in. I recognised one of them—Runty—before the light came on. The light blinded me for a few seconds and I recognised the second man by his voice. ‘I wish I could just slide him into the fucking water, just the way he is.’

  Ken Galvani. I blinked and looked at him—a porker, black receding hair brushed back, aftershave on his blue jowls, tuxedo.

  ‘Yeah, you know me, Hardy. You fucking nuisance. You interfering prick What did you have to stick your nose in for? You could have told Gina to forget it. Hysterical bloody woman. I told Scott he was a fucking idiot for marrying her. Women belong at home, in the house, in the kitchen, in the fucking bedroom!’

  He was working himself up and I hoped it wasn’t to do something I’d regret. I closed my eyes.

  ‘Christ, what’ve you fuckwits done to him? He’s not going to fucking die, is he?’

  The most hopeful sounds I’d heard in how long? Minutes? Hours? Days?

  ‘Nah,’ Runty said. ‘We never touched him hardly. Just shot some dope into him. He’s all right. Supposed to be pretty tough.’

  ‘Rip the tape off. I have to talk to the bugger.’

  Rip it he did, taking some skin with it. The pain brought tears to my eyes.

  ‘I dunno about tough,’ Galvani said. ‘Looks to me like he’s crying.’

  ‘Untie me, get rid of Runty and let me get my circulation back,’ I croaked. ‘Then we can see who’s tough.’

  ‘What did you call me?’

  Galvani thumped the smaller man’s shoulder with a meaty fist. ‘It’s as good a name as any, unless you reckon Fuck-up would be better. Get him some water, I can hardly understand what he’s saying.’

  Galvani undid the straps holding me to the trolley, still leaving me tied hand and foot. Slowly and painfully I lifted myself up and swung around so my legs were hanging over the edge. The blood rushing to places where it hadn’t been for a while caused shooting pains and jumping nerves but the movement was still a relief. Runty went to the sink and came back with a plastic cup of water. I tipped my head back and he poured it in, too fast, but I got it down in a couple of gulps.

  ‘That’s the first nice thing you’ve done for me,’ I said. ‘But I’ll still beat the shit out of you if I get the chance. Where’s your bald-headed mate? I’d like to have a go at him too.’

  ‘You’re not having a go at anyone, Hardy,’ Galvani said. ‘What I’d really like to do with you is stick you in a barrel and slip you into the harbour somewhere.’

  I grinned at him and felt the blood on my mouth from where I’d bitten myself and from where the tape had been ripped away. ‘But you can’t, because if the casino loses two security men in a couple of weeks questions are bound to be asked and you don’t want that.’

  He looked at me disgustedly. ‘Christ, you’re a fucking mess. How could someone who’s supposed to be smart like you get yourself so screwed up?’

  ‘It’s a talent, also Scott was a friend of mine.’

  A silence fell in the grey-painted, soulless room. Runty leaned against a wall and looked bored. Galvani took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one with a gold lighter. ‘It was an accident. A bloody awful accident. Should never have happened.’

  ‘Yeah. What about Clark, the architect?’

  ‘He jumped.’

  ‘After someone scared him shitless.’

  ‘He was shitless, gutless and everything else. I suppose you’ve got it all worked out?’

  ‘Not by a long way. How about some more water?’

  Galvani waved at Runty who complied, but this time I collected a mouthful and sprayed it over him. He got ready to hit me but Galvani stopped him. This was getting better and better all the time, now I was protected property. Any minute he’d be untying me and offering me a real drink.

  ‘In a way, Hardy, I blame you for getting my brother killed. But we won’t go into that. What I will do is try to keep you alive. You want to stay alive, don’t you?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘You do nothing for a month, understand. You just do your job here and that’s all. Plus whatever other shitty little business you’ve got on the side. I don’t care. But you don’t talk to anyone about this—not to your copper mates or your lawyer mates or your journalist mates. No one!’

  ‘Why would I agree?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, Gina is dead. As far as I’m concerned she’s a stuck-up northern bitch who’d be no loss. My family’d take care of the kids better than she can. So, you get it? Do fuck-all for a month and she lives, interfere and she’s dead.’

  ‘Why a month?’

  He dropped his cigarette on the highly polished floor and stood on it. ‘No more talk. No explanations. I won’t say take it or leave it because you can’t fucking leave it, can you?’

  He was right there. My mind was teeming with questions but I could tell I wasn’t going to get any answers. I’d only learned one thing—he’d said I was to do my job ‘here’, meaning we were somewhere inside the casino. Not much help. I stared at him, trying to think of something to threaten him with, something to exert some leverage. And I didn’t have a cracker. Galvani would have Scott’s notebook and the tape and transcript for sure. If Julian Clark had really jumped there’d be no hard evidence of a connection there. They could patch up the Commodore and I still didn’t know what lay behind it all.

  Galvani must have seen the defeat in my face because he smiled. His jowls wobbled a bit and he relaxed his body, letting his belly sag forward. He was a long way from being Pavarotti-shaped, but getting there. I would have liked to swing a couple of punches into his flab. He said something in Italian to Runty.

  ‘Sorry, I only talk Australian.’

  ‘Shiut,’ Galvani barked. ‘Get the needle. This fucker’s going back to sleep.’

  21

  When you wake up from a bad dream, you’re relieved to find that everything you were dreaming about has gone. This was the reverse. I came awake in my own bed and k
new instantly that it was all true. The physical evidence was clear—the sore arm, chafed wrists and ankles, dry throat and mouth and a listless feeling, something like a hangover, something like heat exhaustion. My clothes were neatly folded on a chair. Sitting on top of them were Scott’s notebook, a cassette tape and a set of car keys. My watch was on the bedside table—it was 1 p.m. I’d lost about twenty out of the last twenty-four hours. Realising this made me feel weak, as if I was losing control of everything.

  I struggled out of bed and picked up the notebook. The pages dealing with Scott’s investigation of his brother had been torn out. It was a fair bet that the cassette had been wiped. I pulled on my tracksuit pants and opened the window onto the balcony. A maroon Commodore, freshly washed, was sitting there behind the dusty Falcon, sparkling in the afternoon sun. I stared down at it, thinking of driving the thing to the casino for the next month while I did nothing about the mess I’d stumbled into. The thought made me feel sick. I wanted to crawl back into bed. I wanted to call Glen and tell her all about it. I wanted to get Ken Galvani into some quiet enclosed space and bounce him off the walls.

  Impossible. My metabolism began to return to normal and I realised I was still parched and hungry. I went downstairs and saw the message light blinking on the phone. I hesitated before hitting the button—Glen? Vita? Ken Galvani?

  ‘Hi, Cliff. O.C. here. Sorry to hear you’re crook. Not to worry. Rest up and get in when you can. Might give me a call if you can’t make it tonight. So long.’

  There was nothing edible in the kitchen and I was about to go out shopping when I became aware that I smelled like a hide tanner. I showered, shaved and shopped. Then I made an enormous meal of toast and scrambled eggs and ate it with a glass of white wine cut with mineral water. The cat got a tin of sardines. I cleaned up, washed a pile of dirty clothes and the time to go to work rolled around. Before leaving I checked the cassette and confirmed that it was blank. A thought occurred, the first useful one since waking up. I phoned Primo’s office and got fast-fingers Suzie.

  ‘Suzie, this is Cliff Hardy.’

  ‘He’s out, looking at locations, so he says. I bet he’s on the golf course. His wife complains that the pro at Woollahra sees more of him than she does. He’s even talking about going on a diet to improve his swing. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t hurt, but I don’t need him. You remember typing something up for me yesterday?’

  ‘Off a tape, sure.’

  ‘Have you still got it on the hard disk?’

  ‘Would have. I don’t wipe ’em till the end of the week.’

  I asked her to run off another copy and send it to my office. It wasn’t much in the way of evidence or defiance, but it was something.

  For the next week I walked through the job at the casino like Robert Mitchum in a movie role. I did everything the easy way, trod on no toes but took no shit. Business was good and everyone was happy. Ralston reported to me that he’d narrowed down the list of dark-haired regulars who drove Mercedes to six and he gave me the names. Julian Clark’s was on it. I thanked but didn’t enlighten him and he appeared to be incurious. A guy with his problem gets through one day at a time and doesn’t look for any more trouble than he’s already got. Oscar asked me how I was doing with the Galvani investigation and I studied him closely as he did so. It was an innocent inquiry, I was sure. Oscar was what he seemed—an effective, image-conscious front man, neither more nor less than that.

  The casino was equipped with a swimming pool, spa and gym and I spent a lot of time there, freeing my shoulder, making sure the muscles didn’t atrophy, working my body while my mind was on hold. I would have dearly loved to know why Ken Galvani was so anxious to have a free hand for a month, but I didn’t dare ask around. I assumed the new Commodore was bugged and came to dislike driving it. I sang and spouted obscenities for the listeners, if any. Childish stuff. On the roads and moving around generally, I spotted tails a couple of times and did my best to lose them. Sometimes I succeeded. I had the transcript of the tape in my office, but I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with it.

  The inactivity and frustration drove me mad. I thought of driving to Galvani Senior’s house to check out the security, of contacting Joe, of hiring someone to do these things for me. The trouble was, I believed Ken Galvani’s threat. There had been something implacably cold and bleak and committed about him. I felt guilty enough about Scott and Julian Clark, I didn’t fancy bringing about the orphaning of Scott’s kids. I thought about snatching Ken and reversing the pressure, but I never saw him around the casino and I knew he had considerable backup. I drank a good deal and swam endless laps to work it off.

  Saturday morning. I was in Gleebooks, the old shop near St Johns Road where I like the clutter, browsing the second-hand Penguins section, when I was bumped from behind.

  ‘Don’t turn around. I’ve got my back to you. Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m Joe Galvani.’

  The voice was low-pitched, fast and very nervous. I could hear pages turning and I pulled out a copy of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not and leafed through it. Although it was more than thirty years old the binding was holding firm, more than you can say for modem paperbacks. I muttered as if I was addressing the printed page. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I hope so, too. I have to talk to you. I know I wasn’t followed here. You?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He said nothing for a few seconds and I let my eye run over the passage where Harry Morgan dumps the Chinese illegals overboard. Tough stuff. The shop was busy as always, with people squatting to look at the low shelves, swarming up the ladders for the high ones, pulling out books, reading, checking prices, probably doing a little shop-lifting too, some of them.

  ‘There’s a park next to the church across the road. Meet me there in a couple of minutes.’

  If we hadn’t been followed, what was the point of not looking at each other? I turned round just as he put his book back and headed towards the door. He had the Galvani look all right—the black hair and square shoulders. In build he was somewhere in between Ken the slob and Scott the fit. He had his shoulders hunched and his hands thrust into the pockets of a poplin jacket as if he was trying to make himself invisible—he couldn’t have been more conspicuous if he’d tried. I decided to buy the Hemingway. I had to wait a while to be served. I wandered down the street, crossed at the lights and entered the small park. Good choice, hedges and trees blocking it off from the street and plenty of shaded and sheltered spots within.

  Joe was sitting on a bench near the toilet block. He had an open newspaper in his hands but I could tell he wasn’t reading it. From twenty paces away I could see the trembling of his hands and the sweat on his face. He lit a cigarette which seemed to steady him a little. His nervousness got to me and I checked the park out thoroughly before approaching him. Readers, talkers, soft-drink swillers, all clear. I sat down next to him on the bench and watched his smoke drift in the still air.

  ‘I know what Ken’s doing,’ he said. ‘I know what he’s threatening.’

  ‘Then you know how dangerous this is.’

  ‘Yes.’ He smoked for a while, taking deep drags. When he’d smoked the cigarette down almost to the filter, he lit another one from the stub. ‘I gave up this miserable, stupid bloody habit five years ago. Now look at me. I’m back on it worse than ever. My wife can’t stand it. She says kissing me is like licking an ashtray. It’s just one more thing I’ve got against Ken.’

  ‘I’ve got a few against him myself. What I want to know is why? Why did he put the frighteners on Julian Clark? Why does he need a month’s grace?’

  He talked a blue streak, smoking the whole time, still nervous, but relieved to get it off his chest. He said that Ken had a major interest in a site in Ultimo—one of the contenders for the permanent home of the casino. Ken’s holding was concealed by a thick smokescreen of interlocking companies, but he stood to make millions if this site was
chosen and to lose heavily if it wasn’t.

  ‘He owns it, virtually, but it’s costing him a fortune in interest and so on,’ Joe said. ‘You understand?’

  I said I’d heard of such things. ‘But I still don’t see why ...’

  ‘The site isn’t near the water. You can’t bloody see the water from it. Julian’s design was brilliant, far and away the best, but it was the worst from Ken’s point of view because it depended on proximity to the harbour. Two of the other sites provide that. Ken had to eliminate it. He’s pulling all sorts of strings to get it to go his way. He’s desperate I think. He ...’

  He stopped, visibly upset. I could see where this train of thought was leading and felt I had to say something to deflect it. ‘That’d be illegal, wouldn’t it—to be a big wheel in the corporation running the casino and owning the site as well.’

  Wrong tack, Cliff.

  He nodded miserably. ‘The bastard. My guess is that’s what Scott ...’

  I patted his shoulder as he lit another cigarette. ‘Okay, Joe. I get the picture. It sounds as if he’s put everything on the line.’

  He threw the cigarette away and crumpled the packet in his hand. ‘I’m fucked if I’m going to do this. He’s cost me a brother. If I go on like this it’s going to cost me a wife as well. Fuck him! Fuck him! Yeah, the rest of his businesses are on the nose. He’s overcommitted in every bloody direction. If he doesn’t get this through he’s down the tubes. Christ. Hardy, you can’t imagine how much I want that to happen.’

  I could. I was with him all the way. My life was a mess and I was very eager to make someone else’s the same, worse if possible. But it was one thing to want it and another to bring it about. I watched him as he glanced nervously around the park, twisted his wedding ring and fiddled with his lighter as if he was already regretting the destruction of the cigarettes. As an ally, he wasn’t very inspiring.