White Meat

by Peter Corris

  “Got a list of the numbers?”

  He looked surprised. “No, why?”

  “So the money can be traced after the pick-up.”

  He arranged his face virtuously. “I don’t care about the money.”

  I grunted. “Up to you. Got anything to drink?”

  “Vodka. In the kitchen.”

  “I’ll fix it,” I said. “Want one?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, thanks.” He slumped in his chair and lit a cigarette. I went out to the kitchen and got the bottle. Smirnoff. Actors always drink vodka. Maybe it makes them feel like Raskolnikov or maybe they just don’t like people to smell booze on their breaths. I poured two hefty slugs, chopped bits off a lemon and dumped some ice into the glasses. To my mind the recipe should then read: “Pour down the sink and open a bottle of Scotch” but it was no time to be choosy. I went back into the living room and handed one of the drinks to James. The second he touched it the phone rang and he dropped the glass. The liquor splashed onto the rug and spread about in drops and rivulets like runaway quicksilver. He bent to recover the glass.

  “Answer it!”

  He stumbled across the room and snatched up the receiver. His face was drained of colour and his knuckles were tight and blanched where he clenched the phone. He opened his mouth to speak and was cut off by a quick, staccato flow of sound across the wire. He nodded once, looked up at me and said:

  “Yes, yes, he’s here.”

  More nodding, then: “The rotunda . . . towards the water. Yes, I’ll tell him. Taxi, yes . . . Look, is Noni . . .”

  I heard the click from across the room. Decisive man with a telephone, this character. James put the instrument down slowly as if he was still obeying orders issuing from it.

  “You’re to leave the money . . .” he began.

  “In the rotunda and walk towards the water. Yeah, I gathered that.”

  “Don’t bite my head off.”

  “Sorry,” I said grudgingly. “It’s just that I don’t like this set-up. It stinks of double-cross for one thing and there’s a phoney feel to it.”

  He flushed angrily. “What do you mean phoney? Kidnap, ransom.” His anger dropped suddenly away as if he was incapable of holding any strong emotion for long. A dull stupefied look on his face made me wonder whether there was any centre to his character at all under the histrionic shell. He went on lamely: “Do you mean it’s all too, well, dramatic to be real?”

  “Not exactly.” I couldn’t tell him what I meant. I didn’t really know myself. I’d been on the sidelines in one kidnapping that had ended the worst way a couple of years back and I’d talked to men who’d been involved in others. I remembered, and had got from participants, a sense of desperation and urgency that wasn’t here now. Still, the terms were clear and so was my responsibility.

  “What do you think will happen?”

  “I know what you’re hoping for,” I said tightly. “You’re hoping I’ll drop the money and that your girl will come walking out of the mist and I’ll bring her back and you’ll live happily ever after.”

  His face twisted into a grimace that was part self-pity, part something else.

  “You think I’m soft don’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m trying to tell you that kidnapping almost never works out sweetly. Someone nearly always gets hurt and people get changed by the experience. Some people begrudge the ransom money for the rest of their lives.”

  “I’ve told you, I’m not worried about the money.”

  “Maybe not. That’s not the point. You’re not listening to me. Get ready for something rough. If all I hear about this girl is true you’re in for a bad time whatever shape she comes out of this in.”

  The half-hearted anger came back in the form of a pink flush.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  If I’d thought he was working some kind of deal on the case, some tax dodge or any one of the hundred or so reasons people have for setting these things up, I would have tried to break him with the information I had on the girl’s past. But I didn’t think that; he’d accepted a lot of things about her that would have sent most people off in the other direction, fast, and his concern for her seemed genuine, if immature. This was no time for self-discovery. I suspected that the events of the next few hours would stamp him as perpetually young or force him to grow up fast.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”

  He looked alarmed. “You’ll be too early.”

  I juggled the car keys in my hand and reached for the briefcase and the bag. James moved quickly across to block me.

  I brushed him aside roughly. “Look, there are no rules in this game no matter what they say on telly. It’s a game of chance. You can’t tell what’s the right thing to do and what’s not. But I’ll tell you two things I’m not going to do. One, I’m not going to walk into a park in Balmain after dark carrying a hundred and five thousand bucks without having a look around first. And two, I’m not going to leave myself stranded there with no transport. Sit down. Look, I’ll drive to Balmain, scout around and then get a taxi. Got it? Have another drink. Have a couple.”

  He looked relieved. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you your business.”

  “You’ve got a right,” I said more gently. “It’s your girl and your money.” He started to speak and I held up my hand. “I know, I know, you don’t care about the money. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I know something.”

  Thick dark clouds had blotted out the fine afternoon and heavy rain was falling when I climbed into the Celica and stowed the money on the back seat. A strong wind was whipping the rain around and the spray from other cars cut down the visibility. I crept through the city and picked up speed over the Glebe Island bridge where the lighting was good and the roads were clear. I reached Terry Street half an hour before the appointed time, parked the car in a lane and worked up to the edge of the park using what cover I could. The wind bit in through the light parka and the thought of leaving that much money in the car nagged at me. The .38 inside the jacket where I’d slashed the pocket and reinforced the lining was heavy but a comfort. It was slow to get at it but it was there.

  The park runs down from the road to the water and ends in a narrow peninsula with steep, rocky sides. It’s bounded by a residential street on one side and by the Dawn Fraser pool and some gardens on the other. The park is about six hundred yards deep and is sixty or seventy yards wide at its broadest point. The rotunda sits in the middle like a salt dish on a table. I hadn’t seen it for years but I remembered its vandalised wall linings and smashed fittings and it was unlikely to have changed. I moved up from the street to a point behind a toilet block at the edge of the park and peered into the gloom.

  Nothing was moving except one of a pair of swings which creaked like a door in a Gothic mansion. The slides and turnabout were weird, inter-stellar shapes against the harbour mist and drops of water splattered down on me from the ancient Moreton Bay figs. I waited and watched for ten minutes then eased back down to the street. I went back to the car, got in and wrote down the serial numbers of the money in Saul James’ bag, then I transferred Tarelton’s cash to the soft bag. I walked up to Darling Street holding the bag and trying to feel confident. A taxi U-turned at my whistle and pulled up beside me, splashing water on my legs.

  The driver pushed open the front passenger door. “Sorry mate. Where to?”

  I got in and took out a two-dollar note. “Around the block and drop me at the entrance to the park. It’s a two-dollar ride.”

  He looked at me quickly, the Sydneysider’s suspicion of parks and perverts showing in his eyes but he shrugged and slipped the car into gear.

  “You’re the boss.”

  He did the circuit in second and I tried to push an unwanted image from my mind — it was a picture I’d seen of ex-President Gerald Ford looking bulky and unsure in a bullet-proof vest.

  I paid off the cab outside the arched sandstone entrance
to the park. The pistol butt was cold and hard in my right hand and the plastic handle of the bag was slimy in my left as I went down the short flight of stone steps.

  My rubber soles squelched on the wet path as the darkness of the park closed around me. I stared hard ahead of me and around but there was nothing moving that shouldn’t have been. The path sloped down slightly to the basin occupied by the rotunda. I could sense eyes on me and the wind seemed to be carrying the sound of harsh breathing and the smell of fear. I went up the steps to the rotunda. It hadn’t changed, except to be even more dilapidated. A crazy network of slats hung down from the roof and one of its brick pillars was now a pile of rubble spilling out towards the centre of the concrete floor. A pool of water about six feet across and a few inches deep gleamed in the middle of the circular space. I set the bag down in the centre of it and straightened up slowly.

  “Very funny mate.” The voice was harsh and thin like a fingernail across a blackboard. “Take the hand out of the jacket and keep it in sight.”

  I did what he said. The voice seemed to be coming from the front of the rotunda, low down, beneath my eye level. There was a gap between the floor and the railing with plenty of space to see and to shoot through. I held my hands out wide and empty.

  “OK. Out you go and walk down to the water. Don’t look back or it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  The voice, still harsh and tight, was steady and sounded as if it meant what it said. This was the part I didn’t like. I backed out, walked around the side of the structure and started down to the harbour. I thought I might have a chance at him when I’d moved down a bit because it was too dark for good shooting and there was some cover beside the path. The idea died when I heard the voice again. It was much closer. He’d moved around and stood at the top of the path, positioned where he had me in a shooting gallery for a hundred yards, targeted against the lights where the peninsula begins to narrow down. He said “Keep going” and I did, concentrating on getting to the lights without any bullets in my hide. I’d gone about forty feet when I heard a noise like a scuffle behind me and I instinctively dropped down. A muffled shout and a sharp crack and a bullet whined off the concrete ahead of me and to one side. I pulled the gun out and started to crawl to a tree. A bullet thudded into the trunk I was headed for and I twisted round and fired back at the rotunda, aiming low. For no reason I could think of I shouted a word:

  “Berrigan!”

  The response was a hissing curse. A shape loomed up at the centre of the rotunda, a dark menacing shape that flashed fire at me. I felt leaves and dirt kick up into my face and I fired again and there was a scream and metal rang on concrete.

  I rolled off the path and crawled behind a tree. I screwed up my eyes and strained them through the darkness but I couldn’t see any movement up ahead of me. The park had swallowed up the sound of the shots and the whisper of the trees and the wash of the sea took over again and restored the quiet, normal rhythms of the night.

  I got to my feet and approached the rotunda, keeping off the path and using the trees for cover. Moon and park light gleamed on metal. I looked down at the big gun and left it where it lay. I hoisted myself up over the railing and came into the circle from the rear. A man was lying on his back in the middle of the pool of water. Water had splashed out all around from the impact of his fall and a section of the pool was nearly dry where the water had seeped into the man’s clothes. I put my fingers on his wrist and waited to hear the blood pumping through, but there would never be long enough to wait. He was dead. There was no sign of the airline bag. I lit a match and held it up to make sure. The flickering light caught and danced over his face; the skin was stretched tight over the sharp, hawkish cheekbones. Bony, bat-winged ears stuck out from his close-cropped skull. The coat of his suit had come open and exposed his tiny bony chest covered by a woollen shirt. I struck another match and bent over him. The shirt front was a sodden, oozing mess that glistened thick and oily in the match-light.

  I walked up to the road feeling only marginally like a member of the human race. Each killing of another person diminishes your share in the common feeling that unites civilised people and my stocks were running low. Military service is supposed not to count in this process but for me it did. As I walked I realised that my hand was clenched tight around the butt of the Smith & Wesson and I recalled other pistols I’d fired at other men in this city and other guns, all shapes and sizes, growing hot in my hands as I pumped bullets at human flesh. Small soldiers, their hats festooned with jungle camouflage, danced before my eyes and I sweated as freely as I had back in those Malayan jungles.

  I found a phone booth and called Ted Tarelton and told him what had happened. I couldn’t tell him anything about the girl except that I’d have to report the whole thing to the police now and her name would come out. He accepted it better than I expected. He didn’t try to talk me out of it and I wondered what he felt now about the girl. His wife had answered the phone and handed it straight to him without comment; even over the impersonal wire I could sense their reconciliation and maybe that’s what mattered most. The money certainly didn’t matter a damn. With Saul James it was harder; he showered me with abuse and almost broke down. When he recovered he put one question coldly:

  “She’s dead, isn’t she Hardy?”

  I still didn’t think so and that’s what I said but it made no impression on him. He hung up on me. They had one thing in common — neither of them cared a hoot how many men I shot to death.

  The Balmain police station is tucked up next to the town hall like a bedmate. I parked the Celica outside, went in and asked for the duty officer. A uniformed constable with pimples asked my name, inspected my licence and wanted to know what it was about. I told him briefly and he showed me through to a cold, cream-painted room with a table and two chairs. I sat down, rolled a cigarette and waited. I stuck my head out of the door to ask for coffee but there was no-one to ask. I memorised the cracks on the walls and the cobwebs hanging from the roof. I took my gun out and put it on the table in front of me. I swore at it and the little black hole at the end of its muzzle stared me down. I put it away.

  After fifteen minutes the door opened and two men came into the room. One of them was the new style of copper with a modish, broad-lapelled suit, collar-length hair and a Zapata moustache. His type imagines it can efface itself at a rock concert but it always sticks out like a bull’s balls and never gets offered a joint. The other man was cast in the traditional mould; his face was shaped by grog and collisions with fists and the cut of his hair and clothes owed nothing to vanity. He spoke with the rasping whisper that comes from years of hushed conversations in pubs and stilted evidence-giving in court.

  The young one stationed himself by the door, the other swung his leg up and perched on the end of the table across from me. His eyes dropped to my trousers and stayed there. I noticed for the first time that they were smeared with blood. For no reason my reaction to this inspection was cheek.

  “You better go down to the park. Someone might take him home as a souvenir.”

  The older man turned around to grin at his mate.

  “Pathetic isn’t it? Give them an investigator’s licence and they all think they have to be smart.” The younger cop nodded on cue. The veteran settled himself more comfortably on the table.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Hardy, I’m forgetting my manners. My name is Carlton, Sergeant Jim Carlton and this is Sergeant Tobin.”

  I said nothing and re-lit my cigarette, which had gone out.

  “Yes, well, now that we’re all introduced I think we’d better get on.” Carlton’s voice was friendly in a dangerous way. I prepared myself for the boot that would knock the chair from under me or the slap that would send the cigarette flying, but nothing like that happened. Carlton went on, showing his great weakness; he loved to talk. I relaxed.

  “You know I really dislike men in your game Hardy — I always imagine they’ve got beautiful, rich mistresses and good ins with hi
gh-up coppers. I know it’s not true. I know you’re all seedy little losers scratching a living around the divorce courts. The reality makes me happy but the image gets up my nose, know what I mean?”

  I grinned at him. “You’re an intellectual. Eloquent too. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You don’t,” he said. “You’re just right. You haven’t got two bob and you’re up to your balls in trouble.”

  “You could be right Carlton,” I said. “Why don’t you pick up the phone and talk it over with Grant Evans? He’ll be interested.”

  Tobin looked alarmed. “Evans?” The modish moustache twitched. “He’s alright, Evans. Jim, what d’you think?”

  Carlton sighed and rubbed his hand over his bristled face. He’d seen it too often before — influence, names, interference. He looked resigned, then angry. He banged his fist on the table.

  “’Alright, you know a Chief Inspector. Big deal, he can’t cover you for this.”

  “I don’t need cover. I just have to tell you what happened and I’m willing to do that.”

  “How nice,” Carlton sneered. “Talk away.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ve been through this before. You take a statement now, stenographer and all, with my solicitor present, or we go down to the park in a friendly way and I’ll tell you about it. I don’t know the derro scene in Balmain too well, but I imagine you could have some bad cases of alcoholic freak-out if you let corpses lie around in the parks.”

  “Stop being clever Hardy. We’ve checked out the park, the body’s being taken care of. I want to hear what you’ve got to say.”

  He was throwing his cards away and the younger man could see it. He levered himself off the wall and came forward to lay a hand on Carlton’s shoulder.

  “Easy Jim,” he said. “Let’s play by the book. We’re getting nowhere.”

  Carlton shook the hand off irritably like a dog shedding water. The difference in their ages and the sameness of their rank was eating at him like a cancer. He bulled up from the table and jerked a thumb at me in a gesture that was meant to be tough but lacked all authority.