by Peter Corris
I bounced off something hard and then again off something soft. My head hurt. One ear felt as though a siren was blowing in it full bore. I put my hand up to it, but the noise just got louder and I started to swear and stagger as the pain hit me. I was cold; my chest was bare; I could feel a chill wind biting into me, and my shirt felt like a flapping rag.
Two figures loomed up in front of me and didn’t move. Big things, blue things with hats. The hats looked funny and I laughed.
I said, ‘Funny hats,’ and swung a punch at one of the hats. I missed, lost balance and collapsed into what felt like a warm, hard embrace.
I didn’t want to say it, but there was nothing else to say. ‘Where am I?’
The woman in the white dress and cap and blue cardigan said, ‘You’re in St Vincent’s Hospital, Mr . . .’ she consulted her clipboard, ‘. . . Hardy.’
‘How did I get here?’
‘The police brought you in. Apparently you assaulted one of them, although how you could given the condition you were in is beyond me.’
My head throbbed and my body ached. ‘What is my condition?’
She looked at the notes again. ‘You have a perforated eardrum and multiple bruises and lacerations, some of them requiring stitches. There was some concern that your spleen might have been ruptured but that’s uncertain at this point. Your blood pressure is very high.’
‘I’m on medication for that but I haven’t taken it for . . .’ I felt my stubble. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘Thirty-six hours, give or take. There were various drugs in your system that had to be monitored. You were close to comatose when you were brought in. The doctors will be surprised at the speed of your recovery. Don’t try to sit up!’
My attempt didn’t amount to much and I was happy to settle back on the pillows. I was in a small room with the usual hospital fittings. A television set was mounted on the wall at an inconvenient angle and elevation. There was a cannula in my right hand, a drip hanging from a stand beside the bed. It all reminded me of when I’d had the bypass, but with fewer tubes in and out.
A young doctor came in and looked at the notes. He needed a shave and his eyes were red and tired-looking. ‘Doctor Rasamussen,’ he said. ‘Hello.’
I said hello and watched him. His white coat was crumpled and his shirt was a long way from fresh. He and the nurse took some blood, checked my blood pressure and temperature.
‘How does the ear feel?’ the doctor said.
‘Sore.’
‘It will be. It’s been damaged externally and internally. Have to see what can be done there. But you’re in better shape than I’d have expected, Mr Hardy. You’re very resilient, I’d say.’
I nodded. ‘I’ve always healed quickly.’
‘I believe you. You’ve been knocked about a bit over the years, haven’t you?’
‘Recreational and professional wear and tear.’
‘Interesting. As what?’
‘Boxer, soldier, private investigator.’
‘Really. Well there’s a policeman anxious to see you. Are you up to it?’
I said I was. The doctor and the nurse left and Stephen Chang strolled in.
‘No grapes?’ I said.
‘No fucking grapes. Jesus, Hardy, you’re a walking disaster.’
He told me that I’d been found wandering in Kings Cross in a disoriented condition, laughing and shouting, and that I’d taken a swing at a cop before collapsing into his arms. They’d taken me to the station where they’d found a couple of ecstasy tablets and a small amount of cocaine in my pockets.
‘They also found this.’ Chang produced a crumpled card from his pocket. ‘My card. They rang me and here you are.’
‘Thank you.’
‘What happened?’
I told him what I could remember of it. There were blank spots and places where I couldn’t tell whether something had actually happened or I’d imagined it.
He didn’t do sympathy. ‘Couldn’t tell one Lebo from another, eh?’
‘I didn’t know what your man looked like.’
‘He’d have held his warrant card up at the peephole.’
‘Okay. I was careless. My guard was down.’
‘It could be that you’re past it. So it was Selim Houli and from your description it sounds like it was a bastard called Yusef Talat that took you. And Houli wanted to know if you’d seen Richard Malouf?’
I nodded and wished I hadn’t. Everything above the neck hurt and I wondered about the hospital’s policy on painkillers. I reckoned that I could do with something pretty heavy.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘So it all comes back to that. Is Malouf alive or not? And why does it matter to so many people?’
‘No idea,’ Chang said. ‘What’s wrong?’
Sweat had broken out all over my body and I was shivering. Chang’s face blew up like a balloon and when he stood he looked to be three metres tall. I heard him call for a nurse and then there was a bustle of bodies and voices and I could make no sense of it at all.
When I came out of the warm mist Megan and Hank were there, looking relieved. They told me that I’d had a bad reaction to one of the drugs I’d been given and had gone into a coma for a day or so.
‘Dangerous places, hospitals,’ I said. ‘Remind me to stay out of them in future.’
‘What the hell were you doing to take a beating like that?’ Megan said. She was beginning to show signs of the pregnancy and I couldn’t help smiling at the sight.
‘Don’t smile,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be retired.’
I filled them in as best I could, skipping bits here and there, admitting that I was close to broke and facing a worrying debt.
Megan said, ‘I hope you’ve kept your medical insur- ance up.’
I nodded. ‘I trust you’re well covered. How’s it coming along?’
She couldn’t help smiling herself now. ‘Perfectly.’
‘Are you going to need any help, Cliff?’ Hank said.
Megan glared at him. ‘You’re not going on with it after this, are you?’
‘I have to, love, but not for a while. I’ve got the police onside for a change, and if I need help, Hank, I’ll ask.’
She wasn’t happy, but, stubborn as she was, she knew I was the same. They undertook to collect the mail at my house, to visit and to help me get home. I slept a bit, ate and drank a bit, managed to shuffle along to the toilet taking my drip stand with me, and felt improvement hour by hour.
The drip had gone and my mind was clear and my body less aching when Chang appeared again. He was accompanied by a small dark man, immaculately dressed, who he introduced as Detective Sergeant Karim Ali.
‘You had me worried,’ Chang said.
‘I’m OK, a minor glitch. I know what you’re going to say—nothing to be done about Houli. No evidence.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Who’s this Talat character?’
Ali shrugged. I could tell at once that he didn’t like me—some cops do, most don’t. ‘Muscle, ex-militia.’
‘He’s good at what he does. I’m wondering if he was involved in Nordlung’s death. Nordlung looked to be a pretty big guy. Yachtsmen are strong. Someone must have subdued him efficiently and quietly before putting him into the water.’
Ali said, ‘It’s possible. He’s got all the skills—frogman, paratrooper, explosives expert.’
‘Shit,’ I said, ‘how’d he get in?’
Ali was hard to read; he smiled, almost as if what he had to say pleased him. ‘Identity fraud picked up way too late. We could do something if we got hold of him, but he keeps a very low profile.’
‘Houli said he was under pressure and I believed him. I’m wondering who’s the greater threat in all this—the Wongs or Houli and his mate?’
‘Interchangeable,’ Chang said.
Ali shook his head. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of people Houli has terrified.’
‘About what?’ I said.
<
br /> ‘Money, what else? Not having it, losing it, owing it. The immigrant’s greatest vulnerability.’
‘Hardy,’ Chang said, ‘we’re not going to get any- where unless you tell us who contacted you in the first place. That’s where this particular skein starts—we’ve got a mysterious disappearance that may mask a murder, a definite murder, that’s Nordlung, and a serious assault on you. Who was it?’
I thought hard about it while they waited. I had no contract with Standish and no real obligation. No money had changed hands and, after what his wife had said, there was reason to think he didn’t have the money to pay me anyway. I had no professional reputation to safeguard, but somehow all that didn’t count for much. The habit of protecting the person who’d assigned a job to me was ingrained. As well, I remembered the way Standish had looked in the restaurant. Evidently Chang still hadn’t checked with Caulfield.
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Stephen. I can’t tell you. Not yet anyway. Give me some time to check on a few things. Maybe then.’
Chang looked at Ali. ‘Told you.’
‘Tell you one thing, I think the place they took me was underneath the Tiberias Club. I recognised the music.’
‘Big deal,’ Ali said. ‘How about holding him on the drugs charges until he cooperates?’
Chang said, ‘No, I blew any chance of that when I arranged for him to be brought here. We’ll just have to wait until he fucks up again and hope that tells us something useful.’
‘They tell me I could’ve died if I’d been dumped in a lockup overnight. Thanks.’
But they were already on their way out. Chang turned at the door. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d left you there.’
I was in hospital for over a week. I didn’t have a ruptured spleen, and the doctor told me my broken eardrum wasn’t infected and would repair itself in time. He confirmed what I’d said; I appeared to be a good healer. I’m the least metaphysical person I know, but I tend to believe that recovering from injury or illness is partly a state of mind thing. I wanted badly to heal.
Frank Parker and my lawyer Viv Garner visited—still no grapes. I walked the corridors. Megan brought in books, pyjamas and my medications. I abandoned the Miles Franklin winner and read a biography of Bernard Spilsbury, the famous English pathologist, and re-read George Shipway’s Knight in Anarchy, one of the best historical novels ever.
Early in the morning, Megan brought in some clothes, my wallet and cheque book, and I got out of the hospital with a credit bank balance, just. Doctor Rasamussen, still looking weary, told me to take it easy and to watch my blood pressure.
‘Don’t get excited,’ he said.
‘What if I get a hole in one?’
‘That’d be an exception.’
‘It sure would.’ I didn’t tell him that I didn’t play golf.
We went to the car park and I found that Megan had driven my 1988 Falcon. She settled herself behind the steering wheel.
‘I’ve been driving it around a bit to keep it running. I love this car. Are you going to leave it to me in your will?’
‘No, I’ll leave it to the kid.’
She patted her belly. ‘Fair enough. I won’t say a word about what you do next, but don’t even think about putting Hank in any danger. I’m not interested in being a single mother.’
I settled in at home, threw out some old food and made a list of new stuff to buy. I went to the gym for a very light session and Wesley swore when he saw my injuries.
‘You’re getting too old for this shit, man.’
I stepped on the scales. ‘You’re right. Hey, I’ve lost some weight.’
‘Could be in your brain.’
* * *
I’d asked Megan to bring in my mobile but she’d said she couldn’t find it even though she’d rung it and listened for the signal. Not surprising; I often couldn’t find it myself. I hate the thing. But I hunted around and eventually found it under a couple of CDs that had slid over it on the desk where I’d left it turned off after downloading the photographs of Houli. I thumbed it on and the blinking symbol told me there were unanswered calls.
‘Hardy! This is Miles Standish. Please call me.’
‘Hardy. Standish. Where the hell are you?’
There were two others like that, getting more agitated. I punched in his number.
‘Yes?’
‘Standish, this is Hardy, what—?’
‘Jesus Christ! I’ve been ringing—’
I cut him off. ‘I’ve been in hospital after being bloody nearly killed by that Lebanese bastard you know so well. Don’t come on strong with me, mate. You went into smoke. Are you still holed up in McMahons Point with your girlfriend?’
‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘Never mind. You drop out of sight and now it’s all about where I am. What’s the trouble?’
‘My life’s in danger.’
‘Our lives are in danger all the time.’
‘This is no joke. I need your help.’
The original ‘me’ guy—absolutely no interest in others. ‘I’m not sure I can help you or if I want to. You didn’t exactly tell me much of the truth at our first meeting.’
‘I suppose not, but I thought we had an arrangement.’
‘Yeah, perhaps we do. But I’ll want to know all about your dealings with Nordlung—you and May Ling and Freddy Wong and Selim Houli—before you tell me your problem. By the way, your wife thinks you killed Richard Malouf.’
‘She’s crazy. But Jesus, how do you know—?’
‘I was doing my job. I’ll meet you at your office.’
‘No!’
‘Where, then?’
He named an apartment block at Darling Harbour. I knew it as a place publishers and movie people used to accommodate their big-name visitors to Sydney. I’d done some bodyguarding for a couple of these types. Standish gave me the number of his apartment. He was calmer but still edgy. I didn’t want him calm.
‘Will May Ling be there?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
‘Have you got any money?’
‘I can get some. How much?’
‘As much as you can rustle up. I’ll be there in an hour.’
I wanted Standish to be as rattled and vulnerable as possible if I was to find out what was going on. Frightened was good, too, and he was clearly that already. And I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to have money in my pocket because I had a need for some right then.
Along with my PEA licence went my right to carry a gun. I’d had an illicit one for a while until, after a nasty confrontation two years earlier, I’d thrown it into Balmoral Bay. But I didn’t fancy going off to visit Standish, who had dealings with the Wongs and Houli, unarmed, so for the second time I broke a serious law and bought a .22 Ruger Bearcat pistol from an ex-biker named Ben Corbett.
Corbett, a paraplegic following an accident, lived in a below-ground flat in Erskineville. He didn’t want to let me have the gun without payment up front, but I persuaded him with a bottle of Bundy and a packet of Drum.
‘I’m only renting it, Ben,’ I said. ‘You’ll get it back with five hundred—’
‘Six hundred.’
‘OK, six. In a couple of days—unfired, I hope.’
‘You’re a wanker, Hardy. What happened to your fuckin’ ear?’
I still had a dressing on the ear that Yusef had battered and torn. ‘A dog bit it.’
Corbett snuffed out his rollie and took a big slurp of his rum and Coke. ‘You’re a wanker, Hardy.’
He never had much of a way with words.
The Meridian Apartments were reached via a bridge across the lower reaches of the city streets to Darling Harbour. With money coming in, I got as close as I could by taxi because parking was impossible. I walked across the bridge in the cool blustery wind wearing an old bomber jacket with the .22 deep in the torn lining of one of the interior pockets. I still had aches and pains, but who hasn’t in their mature years? Rain threatened and the w
ater was a dingy grey. I had no real reason to feel encouraged, but I was keen to meet Standish. I had a lot of questions, and forcing my way to answers was what I did best.
Standish opened the door to my knock and I was shocked at his appearance. Gone were the boyish bounce and the confident manner. His tan had a yellow tinge and his shoulders drooped, reducing his height. He was in shirtsleeves and the shirt wasn’t fresh. His pants were wrinkled and his shoes were scuffed. No tie. Some don’t look right with a tie and some look wrong without one—Standish was one of these. I’d been prepared to bully him but there was no need.
In size and décor, the apartment was more suited to a writer than an actor or rock star, and Standish had made it look more middle range than it really was by his sloppiness. Clothes, newspapers and magazines were scattered around the living room and there were glasses, coffee cups and takeaway food containers he hadn’t bothered to bin or put away in the kitchenette.
I didn’t have to ask whether May Ling was there—she wouldn’t have been able to tolerate a pigsty like this for a minute. Standish slumped into a chair and waved me to another. I walked to the window and looked out over the water.
With my back to him I said, ‘Who do you think wants to kill you?’
‘Freddy Wong and Selim Houli.’
‘Unless?’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Either of them could do it with no trouble at all, so there must be an unless or an if not about it.’
‘You’re right. Unless I can find Richard Malouf for them.’
Square one, I thought. ‘Why do they want him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must have some idea.’
‘I don’t. I thought that they might be other victims of his swindle but they said not. May Ling is Freddy Wong’s cousin. When she heard that I’d hired you to find Malouf she told Freddy. She tells him everything—he’s got some kind of hold over her. I just wanted you to follow up on Stefan’s story about seeing Malouf but then the shit hit the fan. Stefan got killed. May Ling said we were both in danger. I had to meet with Freddy Wong or she’d . . . something horrible’d happen to her. Then Houli turned up and the threats came thick and fast. It was only May who stopped them from . . . What happened to you?’
