The January Zone ch-10

by Peter Corris

  ‘What does it mean-all the women?’

  ‘God knows. This is the same paper as the other one, isn’t it? The “touch her and I kill you” one?’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  ‘It’s probably the sniper which doesn’t mean that it’s the bomber. Not necessarily.’

  ‘So, what d’you think?’

  I finished my coffee. ‘I think there’s someone around, close by, who hates Peter January. Maybe for personal reasons, maybe for political things. That doesn’t help much.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I pointed out the door to the busy street. ‘This is one of the closest packed parts of Sydney. We’ve got every kind of ethnic group here, we’ve got people who’ve been let out of psychiatric hospitals, we’ve got trendies, we’ve got Fascists. Have you ever taken a good walk around this place? I have. There’s temples for sects I’ve never heard of. People have got illuminated shrines in their front gardens. I’ll bet there’s an illegal immigrant with a history of mental disturbance and a Family Court problem within a hundred feet of us right now.’

  She burst out laughing. ‘God, you make it sound dangerous.’

  ‘Maybe it is, unless you stick real close to your work, your pub and your house.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Helen and the phone call. Have you explained?’

  ‘I can’t reach her. What about you and your ex?’

  She shrugged. ‘He’s ex as ex can be. He’s crazy, but…’ Our eyes fell on the note. ‘He’s never threatened to kill me.’

  ‘You know what I think?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think it’s a bloody good thing we’re all going to Washington the day after tomorrow.’

  ****

  BOOK TWO

  ****

  11

  As Minister assisting the Minister for Defence, Peter January was low on the totem pole, which meant that he escaped a lot of the trappings-such as hordes of security men, departmental advisers and other nose wipers. When we assembled at Sydney’s International Terminal we numbered but five-January, Trudi, me, Gary, whose other name was Wilcox, and two guys named Martin and Bolton. Martin was from a PR section of the Department of Defence and Bolton was seconded from the Strategic Analysis Unit of the Australian National University. They were experts in politics and they used words like ‘hemispheric’ and even bio-tropic’.

  Trudi distributed the tickets. ‘Business class. Any of you smoke?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bolton said. He was a long lean number with straight fair hair. He had several pens in the top pocket of his jacket and nicotine-stained fingers.

  ‘Not today you don’t,’ January said. ‘I’ll want to talk to you on the way and I don’t want to get my head full of shit before I get there. There’ll be enough of that later. Let’s go.’

  The metal detector screamed as I stepped through the frame. I was wearing the. 38 in an underarm harness and I had a spare ammunition clip in a pocket. It made the attendant’s day. He suddenly stood taller and sucked his stomach in. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ll have to search you.’

  I held my jacket open so he could see the gun but the other people standing around couldn’t. ‘The thing works,’ I said. ‘It really works.’

  ‘Stop clowning, Hardy,’ January snapped. He and Trudi presented the attendant with papers, which meant that his day hadn’t been made after all.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Martin asked. He was a small, intense man with a mop of wiry hair and big, violet-tinted glasses. He kept abreast of me by scampering down the corridor from the waiting lounge pumping his elbows like a competition walker.

  ‘Politics,’ I said.

  It was a Trans Pacific Airlines flight stopping at Honolulu, Los Angeles and New York. The movie was Crocodile Dundee, which I’d seen and didn’t want to see again. I’d brought along Flashman at the Charge which I’d read but wanted to re-read and John Ehrlichman’s Washington Behind Closed Doors which I hadn’t and probably wouldn’t. Trudi and January talked and worked on papers; January also drank. Martin and Bolton read thick official reports so fresh the ink came off on their fingers. Bolton slipped out of his seat from time to time to go somewhere and smoke.

  I read, listened to the music and thought. I’d imagined that the next overseas trip for me would have been with Helen. We had similar ideas about Paris and Rome; now I didn’t even know where she was, much less what ideas she had. I hadn’t phoned the farm, I hadn’t done anything except resolve to send a postcard from New York. That’d rock her. Maybe I could go on to Paris when January had finished in New York. Maybe Helen could join me there. Human beings weren’t meant to travel thousands of miles in a few hours-it stimulates the imagination too much and leaves reality too far behind.

  January left Trudi and sat next to Bolton. They were arguing loudly within seconds.

  ‘You can’t say that,’ Bolton yelped. ‘You’ll offend mother major interest group with every word if you say that.’

  ‘Good!’ January slammed his fist on his knee. Good!’

  ‘They’d retaliate!’ Bolton’s voice went up in aguish. ‘They’d undersell us in wheat, wool, meat…’

  January laughed. ‘They’re doing that now.’ His ice had got a little loose, the way I’d seen it before when he was drunk at my house. Trudi shot him a concerned look which I caught. I looked at my watch.

  ‘Food soon,’ I mouthed.

  She nodded. Gary joined in the argument on January’s side and they went at it vigorously until the meal arrived.

  ‘They’re not the enemy,’ Bolton snapped. He felt for a cigarette and stopped when he saw how January was looking at him.

  Gary looked at his tray. ‘Maybe they are,’ he said. ‘Look at the food.’

  It was all pink or off-white with the consistency of freshly mixed polyfilla. I prodded at it, ate a cube of something called ‘cheese food’ but basically left it alone. January was wound up; he talked as he ate and finished the food apparently without tasting it. Trudi nodded encouragingly and managed to get several cups of coffee into him by the sheer force of her agreement with every word he said.

  The leg room in the business class seats was adequate; the air wasn’t yet too stale and the drone of the engines was pleasantly muted. As he digested the ‘steak food’ and ‘ice cream food’, Peter January slept.

  ‘This is looking tricky,’ Gary said. ‘What’s wrong with him? He doesn’t usually throw it down like that.’

  I looked at Trudi. ‘Does Gary know about Karen?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Time he did,’ I said. ‘I’m betting that’s the complication our master’s wrestling with.’

  Trudi filled Gary in quickly. He covered his face with his hands when he heard the name. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. ‘Does Frank Hogbin know?’

  ‘Nobody knows,’ Trudi said. ‘Except us sitting here, and Mrs Weiner, of course.’

  ‘And where’s her head now?’ Gary said.

  On the block, I thought, but Trudi had learned 80s-speak. ‘That’s what’s bugging Peter,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t been able to reach her for a couple of days. He’s scared she might be doing something foolish.’

  Gary took a sip of cold coffee and made a face. ‘What d’you think, Cliff?’

  ‘I’ve got the same problem with Helen.’

  Gary looked at me, blinking rapidly. ‘Don’t worry,’ Trudi said. She patted my hand. ‘Cliff’s got jet lag-already.’

  ****

  We went through customs at Honolulu. This time I made sure January cleared what they insisted on calling my ‘weapon’ first. I didn’t want any trigger-happy American cop thinking he’d got himself a live target at last. Back on the plane January fell into an argument with Martin. Gary Wilcox stuck close to them and seemed to be fuelling the debate from time to time.

  ‘You need a phrase, sir,’ Martin insisted. ‘A catchcry.’

  ‘A slogan,’ Gary said.

  January loosened his collar. He had his jacket off an
d waistcoat unbuttoned. He looked a little dishevelled but nothing that couldn’t be fixed quickly. ‘What is this?’ he said. ‘An advertising campaign? Are we selling beer here?’

  Gary smiled. ‘You’re falling into the style already, Peter.’

  ‘Shut up! Martin, have you got the breakdown of the media networks? I want to know where I can say what.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And the regional analysis. You’ll be travelling along the east coast a bit, I gather. Now, in Maryland…’

  ‘Agnew country,’ Gary said.

  ‘Jesus, don’t remind me. What’s that Baltimore paper that’s okay?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I whispered to Trudi. ‘Gary’s getting up his nose.’

  ‘That’s right. The idea is to get Peter angry and charged up. Maybe he’ll stay off the grog.’

  ‘He might break Gary’s nose too, or Martin’s glasses. Are we going to have to nursemaid him like this all the time?’

  She shrugged. ‘He’s hoping for a telegram from Karen in Washington. What about you?’

  ‘I’m just a boy from Maroubra. I’ll send Helen a postcard.’

  ‘I’ll help you draft it, if you like.’

  ‘No, thanks. She might smell your perfume. That reminds me, maybe we should’ve given some of those original letters to the cops.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They could do a microscopic analysis, get blood types from fingernail scrapings and so on.’

  ‘Was any crime ever solved by that stuff?’

  I grinned. ‘I never heard of one. Still, something might turn up. We’ll do it when we get back.’

  ‘I’ll make a note. Are you enjoying yourself so far?’

  ‘It’s okay. No one’s shot at me. I’ll be ready for a decent feed. Where’re we staying in Washington?’

  She consulted a notebook. ‘The Lincoln.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘D’you know it?’

  ‘No, but at least it’s not the Watergate.’

  ‘I think the Watergate’s for the rich.’

  ‘It certainly made a lot of people rich, Watergate.’

  ‘Mm.’ She looked across the laps and knees at January who was arguing fiercely with Martin. Bolton, presumably, was off working on his emphysema. A steward came down the aisle and handed Trudi a note. She unfolded the paper and read quickly.

  ‘Great,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Press in LA.’

  ‘Talk English, Trude.’

  She smiled as she handed the note along to Peter. ‘Some members of the American media would like to talk to the Minister at Los Angeles International Airport.’

  ‘Commie Aussie polly gives Reds head,’ I said.

  ‘Jesus, Cliff. It won’t be that bad.’

  We looked at January. He smoothed down his hair, checked his watch and did up some of the buttons on his waistcoat. Martin held out a paper to him and he brushed it aside. ‘Later,’ he said.

  ‘Will he be out of his depth, d’you think?’ Trudi whispered.

  I watched January work his tongue around his teeth and flex his neck muscles, pulling in the incipient double chin. ‘How tall is he?’

  ‘Five nine,’ Trudi said.

  I smiled. ‘He’s barely five eight but I don’t think the depth will worry him too much.’

  ****

  12

  The American reporters, who had seen everything, hadn’t ever seen anything like Peter January. As we assembled in the media lounge, with January in his three piece suit and his advisers and minders around him, they must have thought they were in for another quick question-and-answer session which their editors just might give 30 seconds or a half column to.

  The young man who opened was bored before he started. He wore a striped shirt and bow tie; his hair was clipped to his skull and he treated his cameraman like the Great White Hunter lording it over the Bantu. When he thought the technician had done his best he signalled to January that he was ready. The other reporters deferred to him.

  ‘Mr January, do you regard the United States as a friend or foe to Australia?’

  January smiled. ‘In my country it’s usual for reporters to identify themselves.’

  ‘David Harvard, West American TV.’

  ‘What was the lead story in your channel’s morning news program, Mr Harvard?’

  Harvard fumbled the ball. He looked confused and didn’t know what instructions to give his patient, curious Bantu. ‘I…ah, I’m not sure, I…’

  ‘How can you be a serious reporter if you don’t know how your channel is handling news? Next. Could I have someone from the print media, please?’

  ‘Mr January, Timothy Squires, LA Banner, first question-are you aware that the Soviet Union is ringing Australia with military bases under the guise of fishing facilities?’ Squires was a squat, heavily-jowled man with an aggressive style of delivery. He gave the impression of having elbowed his way to the front and of resentment at having to identify himself as January had requested. He had an unlit cigarette in the hand that held the pad as if he was seeking just one line from January before he could rush off to smoke and file his copy. ‘Second question-what…’

  January was sitting only a few feet back from Squires; he leaned forward and flicked a cigarette lighter. Squires was nonplussed; he put the cigarette in his mouth and leaned towards the light. January killed the flame before he got the tip of the cigarette to it. ‘Sorry, I forgot. No smoking in here. What’s the population of Australia, Mr Squires?’

  The cigarette fell from the reporter’s mouth. Some of his colleagues were tittering. ‘Around, er…shit, five million I guess…’

  ‘Guess again,’ January snapped. ‘Sixteen million plus. You need to do your homework, Mr Squires. Is there anyone here from Cal TV, channel 8?’

  ‘Yessir.’ The speaker was a sun-bleached young woman who stood with her camera and sound team near the back of the room. All three were women.

  ‘Congratulations on your report on the Solomon Islands. I saw it on the satellite link at home. Would you like to ask a question?’

  And that’s how it went on for the remaining few minutes. He killed them with a mixture of charm and sharp put-downs. When Gary wound it up there were more smiles than frowns among the reporters and Peter January had won himself an unprecedented eight minutes on prime time West Coast TV.

  ****

  Back on the plane January returned Bolton’s cigarette lighter with a nod. Bolton was open-mouthed and kept staring at January as if he was a bald man who’d suddenly grown real hair.

  ‘That was fantastic,’ he said. ‘I’ve travelled with…God, all the big ones, and I’ve never seen ‘em handled like that before.’

  January winked. The steward came offering drinks and he waved him away. The wave appeared to include the rest of us because the steward retreated. I called him back.

  ‘Let’s see if they can make a wine and soda,’ I said.

  January shook his head. ‘I’m off it for the duration. You need to be sharp with this mob. But you go ahead.’

  ‘Thanks, boss.’ I ordered drinks for Trudi, Gary, Martin and me. Bolton seemed prepared to follow January into hell and he refused a drink.

  ‘That was fine, Minister,’ Martin said after he’d tried his drink, ‘but I’m telling you, you still need a…’

  ‘Slogan,’ January said. ‘I know. I’m working on it.’ There was a note of dismissal in his tone and Martin moved back a row to confer with Bolton. The plane had emptied somewhat at Los Angeles and our group was gradually spreading itself. January made a side to side movement of his head which drew Trudi and me into conference. Gary Wilcox was studying a map of Washington, DC.

  ‘Speaking of working,’ January said, ‘what’ve you come up with on the threats?’

  I looked at Trudi who raised an eyebrow which could have meant anything. I judged that January was high enough on success to take a pinch or two of bad news. ‘Nothing much, Peter,’ I kept my voice low. ‘Didn’t want to
worry you with this before, but someone took a shot at Trudi the other night.’

  ‘What? Where?’

  I gave him the details but didn’t mention the notes. His uncertainty returned in full measure. ‘Think I will have a drink, plenty of time before I have to do the performing monkey act again.’ He raised his hand to the steward. ‘Scotch and ice.’

  Trudi and I sipped our drinks and January drummed his fingers on the armrest while he waited for his. When it came he sucked half of it down in a gulp.

  ‘Easy, Peter,’ Trudi said.

  ‘You’re saying easy and people are shooting at us.’

  ‘You’ve been shot at before.’

  ‘I could shoot back then. Who the fuck is this maniac? There must be some clues.’

  ‘As far as the sniper is concerned it looks as if it could be a wronged husband.’ I told him about the note. He finished his drink and rubbed his hand over the stubble that was beginning to sprout on his chin and cheeks. We’d been 18 hours in the air; my own face felt rough and dry and my operated-on eye was watering.

  ‘Things have got so crazy in this game,’ January said. ‘You should hear the letters some of the blokes get.’

  ‘You mean MPs, do you!’ Trudi said acidly. ‘I bet some of the women get good ones too.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Sorry, they do. You’re right. They’re 99 per cent hoaxes of course, but there’s some provocateurs out there you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Trudi said. Gary Wilcox was listening now but January didn’t appear to care. He flicked at the edge of his empty glass.

  ‘People get set up. Some of the journos’ll do it in small ways-spike drinks. Sometimes it gets rougher. There was a freelancer who rammed a Member’s car to get a drunk driving story on him.’

  ‘I heard about that,’ Gary said.

  ‘You heard about what happened to the reporter,’ January said.

  Trudi didn’t wear makeup except a bit around the eyes and her short hair didn’t need any attention. She had on light, loose clothes and had kicked her shoes off. She looked the freshest of us all. ‘What did happen?’ she said.