The Big Drop

by Peter Corris

  Talbot’s own car was said to be a silvered Mazda with many refinements which he kept in a parking bay at a big block of flats near his rooming house by arrangement with a non car-owning resident. I located the resident and was shown the empty parking space. As with the room, the rent for the space was paid up until the end of the month. I reported the car stolen, giving my name and phone number, and expected a call on it about as much as you expect the good news from the lottery office.

  I went back to Talbot’s room, drank some more of his beer, and found some papers in a guitar case. He had a couple of hundred dollars in a savings account and a bit more in a cheque account. He had ninety dollars in USA currency which was increasing in value just sitting there in the dark—or so they tell me. Telephone numbers were scrawled on the back of a sheet of music, and I rang them, drawing blanks every time. A guitar shop, more mag wheels, a dentist and his mother in Brisbane, I pretended to be a record producer and asked for news of Tim.

  ‘Timothy?’ the stiff voice came back. ‘I’m afraid we’re not in touch. How did you get this number?’

  I ducked that and left my number in case she heard. I guessed she didn’t even bother to write it down. After putting it off for as long as possible, I rang Hill with the bad news.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘An impasse?’ He pronounced it with a hard ‘a’ like the American he was working hard at pretending to be.

  ‘Looks like it. I’ve got a few connections to the junkie scene, but I got blank walls there too. What’s happening with the record?’

  ‘I’m stalling the producers is what’s happening. Con’s going out of his mind.’

  I realised that Con was the only card in the pack I hadn’t paid attention to and I knew why. I’d accepted Ro’s assessment of him—not very professional. I told Hill there were still a few leads to follow and rang off. A call to the studio got Ro who told me that Con would be in around eight; she made him sound about as welcome as AIDS.

  ‘What d’you want him for?’

  ‘Just a talk. Would you have time for a drink a bit before then?’

  She said she would and I was there at seven. At a quarter past we were in the bar of the North Annandale trying to hear ourselves talk above the country’n western band.

  ‘How’s their sound?’ I yelled.

  ‘Lousy,’ she shouted, ‘but who’s listening?’

  She was wearing a black top and white jeans this time and looked just as good. I grilled her about the music business, because my feeling was that it was at the heart of the matter. Something about the look on Con’s face when he couldn’t get blappy, something about Talbot’s carefully maintained guitars and about Ro Bush’s intelligent, careful assessments of the musicians’ talents and potential made me feel as if I was in the presence of a sort of religious fervour. Hardy’s law is that religion screws people up as much as other things, maybe more.

  Ro Bush was a business-like lady and it didn’t seem inappropriate to take a look at my notebook while we were talking. I ordered a second drink and she unloosened a bit.

  ‘Will this go on Vance’s bill?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled and took a solid sip.

  ‘Is The Dying Game really that good?’

  ‘I dunno. Haven’t seen it. I doubt it, some old hack wrote the script.’

  ‘I meant the song.’

  ‘Oh, the song. It’s not called The Dying Game, it’s . . . Bloody Nose Blues or something.’

  ‘Doesn’t it have to have the film title in the lyrics somewhere?’

  ‘Evidently not; it doesn’t, I know that.’

  ‘Mm, when do they copyright a song?’

  ‘Depends, sometimes when the record contract’s signed, that’s if the song’s already written; sometimes when the record’s due for release.’ She finished her drink and smiled again. ‘Better get back—thanks, Vance.’

  Con was in the studio wearing the same T-shirt and looking even more harassed. My arrival didn’t help.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to do some work.’ He drank a cap of Old Grandad to prove his point.

  ‘You can work. Just tell me about the fight that went on before Tim Talbot left.’

  ‘I can do better than that. Had a mike open.’ He flipped and pushed things on the console and a voice filled the room:

  ‘Fuck you!’ the voice said. ‘I wrote the fuckin’ thing.’

  ‘You think you’re bloody God, Tim. I changed the fuckin’ lyrics as I sang it, you didn’t even fuckin’ notice and now you want the credit.’

  ‘I wrote every note, every word.’

  ‘Wrote! What d’you fuckin’ mean, wrote? Where is it?’

  ‘In me fuckin’ head.’

  ‘What a crap heap that’d be—have another hit, Tim.’

  ‘I’m straight, Sport.’

  This was followed by some laughter, a few guitar chords and a strangled yell. Con cut the sound.

  ‘What happened?’ I said.

  ‘Sport punched him. Tim split.’

  ‘Who was in the right? I mean about the song?’

  Con shrugged and a sharp bone stuck up out of a hole near the neckband of his T-shirt. ‘Who knows? Tim wouldn’t have written anything down at that stage. Sport’s right there.’

  ‘Play me the song and I’ll leave you in peace.’

  The bony fingers began their console minuet again. ‘Rough mix,’ he said, ‘accent on rough.’

  The studio filled with drums and guitars and a wailing chorus. All that stopped and a voice that sounded like it was coming from under a door croaked and muttered through some verses about blood and broken bones. The guitars cut in from time to time. The whole thing ended with a noise like a symphony orchestra falling into a snake pit.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said.

  ‘Great isn’t it? Or could be if we could get that rhythm track.’

  ‘Didn’t Talbot want it quieter.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He flipped and punched; I could see the big spools over in the corner of the studio spin and stop. The music was familiar this time—the jumpy sound Con had been trying to match his guitar to on my first visit. I tapped my foot and Con looked at me before taking another cap of bourbon. I got up.

  ‘I’m with Tim,’ I said. ‘I’m keener than ever to find him.’

  Sport Gordon lived in Bellevue Hill, off Victoria Road. His house was well back behind a high wall with big iron gates that were standing half-open when I arrived. I parked further up the street and admired the water view in one direction and the glow from the city in the other. This was one rock star who’d apparently done all right. The house was a low, rambling affair, half-wrapped around a swimming pool and a pebbles-and-pot-plants garden. There was a lot of glass and polished wood, and a three vehicle carport.

  There were lights on in the house but I couldn’t see any movement, although some of the drapes were drawn back. I went through the gates and took a routine look at the carport. A white Mercedes sports car was sticking out, front first and slightly slewed, from one of the spaces and the car next to that was covered. I went over and lifted a corner of the tarpaulin: the sloping shapes of a Mazda RX7 gleamed silver under the moonlight.

  That put a different slant on things. I went back to the car and got my S & W .38; I threaded the hip holster onto my belt and tucked the gun away at the back. I sneaked through the gates and went quickly to the side of the house and worked my way back in the shadows. I never heard of anyone who kept the door that led out to the pool properly connected to the alarm system and Gordon was no exception. I crouched down out of the light thrown up from the pool and tried to gauge the amount of movement in the house and where it was coming from. It didn’t take long; there wasn’t any sound and no movement either.

  I stepped in and began a quiet prowl of the rooms. There was a lavishly stocked kitchen, a couple of opulent bathrooms and several bedrooms, big and small. One of the smaller ones was interesting—there were heavy webbing straps attached to the bed
frame and slots for the ends of the straps to lock into. It looked newly installed, and a bit too practical for bondage fun’n games.

  The signs were that three or four people were using the house but the place was as silent as the grave. I found the reason for that at the end of a passage on the side of the house away from the pool. The heavy padded door and glowing light above it meant recording studio.

  Out by the pool again and round the back, bent low. I fetched up by the window into the studio and lifted an eye up to the bottom inch of the glass. Sport Gordon was there in his cut-off T-shirt along with another muscle man who was sitting at a console like the one in Annandale. Tim Talbot was hunched over a guitar, strumming hard and looking scared. He stopped; the console operator swore and flipped switches. Gordon took two steps and whacked Talbot across the face with a half-closed hand. Talbot’s head jerked back on his thin neck.

  I ducked down and scooted back into the house. Sound studio doors don’t have catches, they just swing in, silently and smoothly. I took out the gun, pushed the door open and went in, side-stepping equipment and cables. Gordon recognised me and shouted something that was inaudible over the music. I told him to shut up and I gestured with the gun at the switch flipper. He cut the sound. Talbot had blood trickling down from his mouth and was the colour of old mortar.

  ‘Get up,’ I said. ‘We’re going.’

  ‘Like fuck!’ Gordon bullocked forward and I brought the gun up to level at the bridge of his nose. I didn’t move back.

  ‘Rock stars die young,’ I said.

  Talbot threw the guitar down, shot up out of his chair and rushed under the gun. He bolted through the door, yelling, tripping on cables but staying upright.

  Sport Gordon threw a good punch that got me on the shoulder and loosened my grip on the gun. But he didn’t have the combination and while he was getting set for the next one I clipped him with a light left on the ear. He yelled and covered it with his hand; I chopped him across the throat and he covered that with his other hand. Maybe he was thinking of his precious vocal chords. The other man didn’t move.

  I ran out of the studio, jumping the cables, and skidded out onto the tiles beside the pool. I heard the car engine start, then the turning tyres screamed across the concrete and there was a bang as the sports car clipped the gate. It was heading up the hill as I reached the street. I belted along to my car and got it started and into a U-turn before I realised I still had the .38 in my hand. I threw it behind me and settled down to follow the Mercedes that was fifteen years younger, 50 kilometres an hour faster and driven by a madman.

  Talbot took streets that would lead to the short freeway and the city. He took the turns fast and tight, and terrorised any cars that looked likely to check him. I followed as closely as I could which wasn’t very, but I still managed to keep moving through the wake of stopped cars and irate drivers he left behind him.

  He could drive all right, at least at first; at times all I had to keep in sight were his flashing brake lights. But something started to get to him and the Merc was weaving as it came off the freeway and roared down beside Centennial Park. I crowded up behind him after he hesitated at the Oxford Street turn. He dropped a gear and ripped past a taxi and through a red light.

  He’d been shitting on the speed limit for more than ten minutes and still there were no flashing lights or sirens. It couldn’t last. We were howling along through Paddington but there was no chance he could keep up the pace or the style further down. I flattened the accelerator and drew up beside him near the barracks; he glanced across at me and I thought he looked puzzled. He dropped off the speed a bit and I coat-of-painted him, sending the Merc screeching off half-left up the hill into Napier Street which is leafy and quiet.

  He was a fast-reacting driver; he saw the barriers early and threw the car into a skidding, turning stop that tortured the steering and the tyres. He almost made it, too; but the right front light collapsed against a post and the engine stalled. I shoved the Falcon through a U-turn and jumped out. He was sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead and fanning his sweating face with his hand. I yanked him out and half-carried him to my car. He struggled briefly and I almost broke his arm ramming him into the back seat. A few lights had gone on in the houses and I thought I could hear a siren in the distance. I got started and went into the maze of blocked-off and one-way streets until I thought it was safe to emerge and head for home.

  I worried all the way back to Glebe about leaving him over the back with the .38 floating around somewhere, but he stayed still and quiet, apart from doing a bit of muttering and groaning. I hauled him into the house and stuck him under a shower while I made coffee. I had a quick whisky while the coffee brewed and felt pretty pleased with myself.

  He came out with a towel wrapped around his thin hips and plopped down in a chair at the table. I poured him some coffee.

  ‘Thanks.’ He eyed the Scotch and I added a bit to his mug. He took a few sips, wiped some drops of water off his face and started to look a bit better.

  ‘Who’re you?’ he said.

  ‘Hardy, private investigator. Vance Hill hired me to find you.’

  ‘That shit.’ He drank noisily. ‘Still, thanks, I’ll just finish this and I’ll be off.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’m delivering you to Hill.’

  ‘Be buggered you are.’ He half-rose from his chair but I reached over and pushed him back.

  ‘Use your head. How did you like being strapped to the bed?’

  ‘Not much,’ he muttered. ‘Why can’t people leave me alone?’

  ‘You’ve got what they want. Look, son, I don’t want to heavy you but this needs straightening out.’ I dug into my jeans pocket, pulled out Ro Bush’s card and slapped it on the table. ‘She’s got your interests at heart hasn’t she?’

  ‘Ro? Sure.’

  ‘We’ll talk to her as well as Hill, don’t worry. Gordon was trying to pinch your song, right?’

  He finished his coffee and I poured some more along with whisky for both of us. His fingers were long, thin and strong, like Con’s without the tobacco stains. He looked tired and washed-out. A bit of a talk, another Scotch and I was pretty sure he’d sleep for ten hours.

  ‘The song, yeah. Shit, I wish I’d never written the fuckin’ thing.’

  ‘You did write it, did you?’

  ‘Bloody oath. Sport’s shitting himself. You saw all that crap he’s got—swimming pool and all? He’s got debts up to here. Solo, he’s shit.’

  ‘How much did he get out of you?’

  ‘Bugger all.’ He grinned showing surprisingly good teeth. ‘I just couldn’t remember how it went. God, I’m tired.’

  I put him in the spare room and locked the door, but he was still asleep when I woke up. We walked to Annandale through the cool morning air and he filled me in a bit more on what had happened. He’d done some drinking and dope smoking after he’d stormed out of the studio, but nothing hard. Gordon picked him up a few days later, got him drunk and made him the prisoner of Bellevue Hill.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time a song changed hands for a bottle. Or some smack. That’d have been the next thing.’ He whistled tunefully and grinned at me. ‘I’d had a lot of bourbon and practically no sleep when you barged in. I just saw the door and went. Wonder what Sport’ll do about the Merc? Probably owes a bundle on it.’

  Ro Bush and Hill greeted Talbot as if he was Mick Jagger who’d just dropped by with his band to help out. He disappeared into the studio and I was left with Hill and the sordid business of my cheque. He signed with a flourish and handed it over.

  ‘Good job, thanks.’

  ‘Better keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Will he get his way with the production of the song?’

  His eyes narrowed and all the money-worry lines on his face deepened. ‘Maybe.’

  I heard the song when it came out; there was a different singer, less chorus and more mandolin, but it still lacked the nic
e, light beat I’d liked and sounded like bricks being dropped on a tin roof. I despaired for the younger generation, but then, so had my Dad when I got my first pair of pegged pants.

  The Big Pinch

  I felt a pang, I won’t deny it, when I yanked out the pin that held the card to the door. I crumpled the card and put it in my pocket, closed the door. CLIFF HARDY—PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS was out of business. As I went down the corridor, past the voice teacher and the horoscope-caster, I tried to remember how much turnover there’d been along that corridor in the twelve years I’d graced it with my office. A lot, and now my turn had come. I didn’t imagine it was any different from the experience of the guitar teacher and the graphic artist and the literary agent—just a matter of the door opening too many times for the occupant and not enough times for clients.

  I could have paid the rent for another month; hell, the rent was paid a couple of weeks in advance, but there didn’t seem to be any point in just sitting there listening to my hair grow. Get out, Cliff, I could hear a voice saying. Don’t wait until you can’t pay the rent—retire with the title.

  I tried a little Gene Kelly dance on the stairs, telling myself that it would be a relief to go to work for the Roger Wallace Agency—to get a salary cheque and be insured against breakage. A company car maybe. Eight steps down I lost balance and would have fallen if a man coming up hadn’t steadied me. His grip on my arm was firm; I felt embarrassed and more so that he knew me.

  ‘Mr Hardy? Been watching Flashdance?’

  ‘No, just young and foolish. Do I know you?’

  ‘We’ve never met but you were described to me. I want to hire you; that is, if you’re not all tied up at Arthur Murray’s.’ He was a dark, smooth-featured man, a little shorter and wider than me and he smelled of expensive after-shave when he pushed his smooth face close to my rough one.

  ‘What’s the idea?’ I jerked my arm free.

  ‘I wanted to see if you’d been drinking.’