White Meat

by Peter Corris

  “OK Hardy, we’ll play it your way. Guys like you and your tame Chief Inspector make me sick.”

  I got up slowly and watched him stalk out of the room. He was probably an honest cop and that couldn’t be any easier in Balmain than elsewhere. The honest ones were edgy and this sometimes prompted them to behave like the dishonest ones. It’s an old trade. Tobin let him go and waved me through the door.

  “Have you got rich, beautiful mistresses too, Hardy?” he asked as I passed him.

  I grinned. “Just the one.”

  We went out into the night and got into a police car. The uniformed man at the wheel gunned the motor and U-turned violently, throwing Tobin almost into Carlton’s lap. The older man swore and pushed him away. The night had thickened and the rain was falling steadily. Carlton stared gloomily out of the window and refused a cigarette from Tobin. I took one and he lit it with a nice-looking gas lighter. Three puffs and we were at the park. We piled out of the car and the driver pulled police issue slickers from the boot. We trudged down towards the rotunda like a set of spies, all distrusting each other and caught in a ritual over which we had no control.

  Two heavily built cops were sheltering in the rotunda. One of them stamped out a cigarette as we approached and his companion plodded out into the rain.

  Carlton marched up to the body and looked down at it. The corpse had about as much emotional impact on him as a pound of potatoes.

  “Let’s see your gun,” he grunted.

  I handed it over and he sniffed it. He fiddled with it for a minute and seemed unfamiliar with its mechanism.

  “We’ll hear the excuses later. You shot him. Where from?”

  I retraced my movements up the path and pointed to the approximate spot. “I shot at him,” I said.

  “One shot?”

  “Two.”

  “Why?”

  “He was shooting at me.”

  “How awful.” He prowled around the path and the body and I heard him cursing the rain and the wind. Tobin came forward and squinted back down the path to the shadowy structure.

  “Pretty good shot,” he said, “given the conditions. What was the angle?”

  “I was flat on my belly and I was shit-scared.”

  “Yeah, I would be too.” He squared his shoulders and marched back to the rotunda. I leaned against a tree with my shoulders hunched against the rain. I heard muttered voices and then one of the cops scurried up the path to the road. Tobin came out of the gloom and joined me under the tree.

  “You’ve got a licence for the .38?”

  I told him I had.

  He drew in a deep breath and raised his cigarette to his lips. It had gone out in the rain. I looked at the damp butt between my fingers and we threw them away simultaneously.

  “There must be quite a story to this Mr Hardy.”

  “Why so?”

  “The dead man isn’t holding a gun and there’s no other gun around that we can see.”

  19

  It took more than two hours of questions, coffee, cigarettes and hot tempers to get it all sorted out at the station. Carlton and Tobin went through their version of the heavy-soft routine, but their hearts weren’t in it. They didn’t like me, they didn’t like me dealing with kidnappers and they particularly didn’t like me doing it in Balmain. But they didn’t think I’d criminally killed Berrigan. I told them who he was and how he was connected with Noni Tarelton. I told them about the Baker woman in Macleay but I didn’t make the connections for them, I just had to clear myself on that count. Tobin tried to tie it all together.

  “This Berrigan was a nutter, right? He was still hung up on the girl and he killed the Abo who was screwing her. Then he went to Macleay after the money but he didn’t get it. He bashed the Baker woman, then he dreamed up the idea of getting some cash by ransoming the girl. Maybe the girl was in on it — yeah that’d explain it.”

  I was tired and would have agreed to anything but he didn’t need the encouragement. Carlton was sneering at him from across the room and that was enough to spur him on.

  “It looks bad for the girl,” he continued. “It looks as if she was in on the whole thing and then double-crossed Berrigan. She scooted with the money.”

  He was the original wrap-it-up-and-post-it boy. The theory had some merit; I was pretty sure I’d seen two figures at least in the park and the gun and the money couldn’t have flown away. There were things I didn’t like about it though: I wasn’t sure that the relationship between Berrigan and Noni would have permitted this development. I wasn’t sure the girl would have been cool enough to pick up the money and gun and fade into the night. It looked full of holes, but perhaps I just didn’t want to look failure squarely in the face as I’d have to do if I accepted Tobin’s scenario. Ted Tarelton and Saul James were out a hundred and five thousand dollars and still no girl. I was out a few hundred myself. If I’d belonged to a professional association of private detectives I’d have deserved drumming out. Carlton broke in on my musing.

  “That the way you see it Hardy?” The sneer was still on his face. It was also in his voice.

  “Yeah. I suppose so.” I hadn’t told them about Coluzzi or the blacks or Noni’s drug habit. They were little private pieces of worry that didn’t need airing. Still, it didn’t say much for Tobin’s power of mind that he didn’t ask how I’d got back from Newcastle or how I’d been spending my time. Mentally, I threw his theory out the window.

  “Right,” said Tobin. The word came out smugly. He turned to Carlton and waved him in like a football coach calling a reserve off the bench. “Jim, how do you see Hardy’s position now?”

  Carlton looked as sour as a green lemon. The look he shot at Tobin suggested that if the younger man ever got an inch out of line Carlton would pour it straight into the official ear sooner than he could spit. The enmity between them explained the unworkability of the team; Carlton too sour to be imaginative, Tobin too ambitious to be careful. It was a brilliant sadistic pairing and had to mean something within the police set-up. Not my problem.

  Carlton glared at me. Cigarette ash had fallen on his waistcoat and his dark stubble was shadowing his cheeks and doubling his chin. He didn’t look spruce and he knew it. He knew that I knew it. Tobin, elegantly arranged against the wall, looked fresh and bright. He got out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of that fancy lighter.

  “I still don’t like you Hardy,” Carlton grated. “Your type shouldn’t be running around with licensed guns. You’re a menace.”

  I let it pass. It was just guff, old, stale, defeated air. He took out a notebook and began checking off items.

  “One, failing to give information concerning a felony — the Simmonds killing. Two, failing to report a felony — the Baker woman. Three, conspiracy in a felony — this ransom balls-up.”

  “I’m illegally parked outside the station, too,” I said.

  Tobin grinned. He’d contrived to do all the smart talking himself and left the silly, hack stuff to his partner. Suddenly I felt vaguely sorry for Carlton and a sharp dislike for Tobin. But I had to stick with the strength. I shrugged and squashed out a cigarette I hadn’t wanted when I’d made it.

  “Book me on it then. I’ll call Cy Sackville and we can all go home to bed.”

  Carlton dusted off his hands to release some aggression and worked his heavy body off the table. “Get out Hardy. Piss off.”

  I held out my hand as I got to my feet. “Give me my gun back.”

  He shook his head. “No way. It’s evidence for an enquiry. I might get you delicensed yet. Why? Do you need it to get from here to your cute little cottage?”

  “You never know. I lead a dangerous life. That all then?”

  Carlton ignored the question and left the room. Tobin barred my way with a stiff arm across the door.

  “Aah, you might mention to Evans that you got a fair shake here.”

  He was the second cop to ask me for the same favour in forty-eight hours. It made me feel like a pimp for a ve
nereal whore. I brushed the arm down.

  “I might,” I said.

  At least he didn’t thank me. I walked out of the station, got in the car and headed for where there would be consolations — cold, wet and alcoholic.

  It was close to ten-thirty when I got home. I left the car in the street rather than do the fancy backing and filling it takes to get into the courtyard. The bushes and shrubs whose names I don’t know were heavy with water and I got some of it on me as I brushed past them. A voice hissed my name from the shadows near the front door. I crouched and slapped my hand to where the gun should have been, then let it drop uselessly to my side. I was a sitting target, caught in the glow from the street light and my stomach lurched with the knowledge. Then she stepped out of the shadows, slender as a wand even wrapped up in a donkey coat.

  “Mr Hardy, it’s Penny Sharkey.”

  She moved into the light and her finely-shaped head picked up a sort of aura. She was wet and breathing heavily; I should have heard that from the path, but it wasn’t my night for professional standards.

  My initial feelings were completely erotic. Extreme tiredness can do that to you. I wanted to hurry inside with her and let everything go to hell except sex. The fantasy lasted perhaps a tenth of a second before the veneers of civilisation and notions of professional conduct and God knows what other inhibitions crowded it out. I took hold of her arm and I could feel her shaking. I hung on hard, got the key in the lock and opened the door. She stumbled ahead of me into the passage and threw her hand up over her face when I turned on the light. I clutched her harder, perhaps out of a fear that she’d run away, perhaps from lust. She wrenched her arm back and I felt the pain shoot along and affect her voice.

  “You’re hurting me!”

  I said I was sorry and let her go. I went past her into the house turning on lights and leaving her to follow me if she wanted to. I opened the refrigerator and got out some wine.

  “Drink?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  I poured the drink and set it down on the table. I didn’t look at her too closely. I was conscious of the slenderness of my hold on her and she was the only tangible thing I had left of the Noni Tarelton case. If she was part of it at all. Suddenly I was sure that she was. She stood in the middle of the kitchen dripping water on the floor from the soaked nap of her coat. I sat down at the table.

  “Take your coat off, Penny, and sit down. I’m sorry I hurt your arm, I’ve had a rough night and I’m not thinking too straight.” I mustered up a smile from somewhere and made unbuttoning motions with my hands. She undid the coat, slipped out of it and dropped it over a chair. A stream of water ran off it and made a pool on the floor. She sat down and drank three inches of wine in one steady pull. The tiny breasts pushed up under her white skivvy and I tried to distract myself with the wine. I drained my glass and poured some more. I held the flagon up enquiringly,

  “No, this’ll do.” She sipped the stuff as if it had a name and an age.

  “Why are you here, Penny? What’s going on? Sunday told me you wanted to contact me.”

  She curled her hands around the glass and wouldn’t look at me.

  “I saw Noni. Just by accident. In Balmain. I tried to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t you call again?”

  “I couldn’t. They left the cafe. I rang Jimmy while they were eating.”

  “What were you doing in Balmain?”

  “I got a job there, in a solicitor’s office. I started yesterday. I won’t have the job now, I haven’t been in today.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been looking for you, waiting for you.”

  “Why me?”

  “I want to see Noni in a box. You said you’d let things work out the way they had to. Noni’s with a man who’ll kill her. I’m sure of it.”

  I described Berrigan and she nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s him!”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was in this cafe having coffee and reading the paper. I was hidden by the paper when they came in. They sat down a couple of tables away and ordered food. I could just hear what they were saying.”

  “Which was?”

  “They were having an argument, about plans or something. His plans and her plans. And about money. I couldn’t catch the details.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I tried to get you through Jimmy. I got a bit closer to them when I came back. I was wearing these big shades and Noni didn’t look at me. She wouldn’t recognise me easily anyway. She hasn’t seen me often enough.”

  “What did you hear this time? Where was this by the way?”

  She named an all-night cafe in Darling Street. “I heard him say that if it all went alright they’d have the money anyway. She was saying they’d missed the money or something like that.”

  I drank wine and thought about the story. It sounded alright, a bit too pat perhaps but she’d had time to get it straight. It fitted the facts as far as I knew them but it didn’t lead anywhere.

  “Anything else?”

  She drank some more of the wine, a little nervously I thought. She stood up, went across to the coat on the chair and dipped into a pocket. She came up with some filter cigarettes and I lit one for her. She puffed at it and fiddled with the spent match.

  “I know where he . . . where they’re going after the plan is finished, whatever that is.” She drew in smoke and expelled it through her finely-shaped dark brown lips. The hand holding the cigarette was shaking and she was staring at my face as if willing me to do what she wanted, including, maybe, believe her.

  I tried to keep anxiety out of my voice. “Where would that be Penny?”

  “I’ll tell you if you promise to take me with you and let me in on whatever happens.”

  I shook my head. “No, it could be rough. Besides, I’d have to search you for concealed weapons.”

  “Nothing like that,” she said fiercely, “I promise. I just want to be there. I could help.”

  I was sure she wasn’t telling me the whole truth, but I could only guess what she’d left out. I was sure that she didn’t know of Berrigan’s death. That meant we’d both be heading into a tricky situation with only partial knowledge of the background facts. That sounded like a recipe for misunderstandings and disaster. But in the plan that was slowly forming in my head she could certainly be a help. In fact, the more I thought about it, she was indispensable. I couldn’t take her on without checking her story though. That done, I could risk it. I had to, anyway.

  “Alright, I’ll take you. Where?”

  “Macleay. I know where in Macleay, too, but I’ll tell you that when we get there.”

  I grinned. “You’re like an old pro. Fair enough, I’ll check the flights.” I got up and started to move out of the kitchen. “Got any money?” I said over my shoulder.

  The airline informed me there was a flight north at seven-thirty a.m. I booked two seats. When I got back Penny had tipped the contents of a small embroidered purse over the table and had arranged things in piles. The money didn’t amount to much of a pile. “Twenty three dollars, thirty eight cents,” she said quietly.

  “I’ve got about a hundred. We’ll need more. I’ll have to go out tonight and get some.”

  “Don’t go out.” I looked up, surprised at the different note in her voice. She was pushing her hair back with both hands. Her figure was lean and flat but definitely female. I felt the juices flowing again and she came around the table to where I’d sat down. She leaned over and pushed the wine away, then she bent and kissed me on the lips. She tasted fresh and salty like a clean stretch of sea on a clear day. I hooked my arm up around her neck and pressed her head down for another kiss, a long one. I felt my tiredness drop away. I felt eighteen years old and I wanted her. I stood up and put my arms around her. She was slim and firm like a young tree. It seemed as if my arms could go around her twice and I was feeling younger by the minute. I was hard and breathing fast and she was pressing her hip
s forward at me and then suddenly it felt all wrong. I was twice her age and a few years more and she was alien and strange. The bones of her back felt fragile under my hands and I felt clumsy and old. I eased her away.

  “It’s not a good idea,” I croaked.

  She looked incredulously at me. “You want to, you’re hard as a rock.”

  “I know, but I don’t go to bed with teenagers. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

  “Bullshit.” She embraced herself, crossing her arms, and pulled off her skivvy. Her tight trousers had a silky sheen and they shimmered as she slipped out of them and let them slide to the floor. I watched her thumb down her pants and the hard, spare lines of her brown body cut off my breath. She squeezed her minuscule breasts together with the spread fingers of one hand.

  “Come on, I like you.” Her teeth shone in her beautiful dark face but her eyes were as hard as agate. I was suddenly aware that she was giving a performance, a good but cold one and I resisted the knowledge but it took over and gripped me. I reached for the wine.

  “No,” I said hoarsely. “Come back in five years.”

  She laughed a bit unsteadily. “Don’t be silly. Where’s your bed?”

  “Upstairs, front.”

  She whipped around and I heard her feet dancing up the stairs. Carefully carrying a full glass of wine I followed. She’d turned on a lamp in the bedroom and was bending to pull back the cover. In the lamp glow she looked like an Egyptian maiden of infinite grace performing some domestic task. She slid into the bed except for one thin bare arm which she arranged outside the covers and alongside her. She lifted the arm and let it fall.

  “Get in.”

  She’d have tempted Gandhi and I knew that if I moved an inch towards the bed I was done for. I raised the glass and drank some.

  “Go to sleep. If it’s any consolation to you I’m going to get drunk.”

  I started back to the stairs. She was laughing when I reached them but the sound stopped very soon.

  I didn’t get drunk. Not then. I let myself quietly out of the house and caught a taxi back to Balmain. The all-night cafe was fighting the darkness with a pale, flickering neon sign and droning, toneless canned music. I pushed the door open and went in to the smells of burnt bread and over-fried oil. There were about ten tables in the place and solitary men sat at three of them. One of the men had his head on his arms and the other two weren’t far off it. A heavily built man wearing a large white apron came from the back of the place when the door slammed behind me. He went behind the counter and leaned forward over the espresso machine. His hair was black and curly above a round olive face. The thought crossed my mind that he was the same nationality as Coluzzi, but that’s where the resemblance to that predator ended. This was a soft, comfortable man.