I walked out, nodded to the secretary and left the building. I thought I’d accomplished something, but I wasn’t sure what.
* * * *
The answer came before I reached my car. My mobile rang.
‘This is Sanderson. We have things to talk about. Come back.’
I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. I told him I had other matters to attend to and that if he wanted to talk he could see me in my office that afternoon. He didn’t like it but he agreed.
I’d left the Falcon in a multi-storey car park—the kind where bad things happen in movies. I was watchful and I had my pistol and the baton in a light satchel that I kept unzipped. Quick-draw Hardy.
A man stepped down from a huge fire-engine red 4WD parked next to my car. Big guy, dark suit. I dropped the satchel and took the baton in one hand and the pistol in the other. He threw his hands in the air.
‘Hey, hey, what’s the problem?’
His pale, flabby face was a mask of innocence. His car keys dropped from his hand and I could see that he was shivering. But you never know. I kept the pistol pointed at him and put the baton on the ground as I picked up his keys.
‘If you want the car, take it. Just don’t hurt me.’
There was a sob in his voice and tears in his eyes. I threw the keys about twenty metres. They clattered against another car. I picked up the baton and the satchel and put the weapons away.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘My mistake.’
He stood rooted to the spot, his hands still half raised. I unlocked my car, reversed out and drove away. A quick glance in the rear vision mirror showed him slowly walking to recover his keys.
I knew I’d overreacted and I wasn’t happy about it. I hadn’t even come close to shooting the guy or bashing him, but I should have read the signs earlier—the face and figure, the car. No one intent on mischief drives such a distinctive vehicle. Not for the first time I reflected that I needed a break, a holiday. Maybe Lily and I could go to the Maldives, snorkel in crystal-clear water, eat and drink whatever they ate and drank there, send postcards.
I did some routine stuff in the office, drank coffee, tried not to think how much I’d have liked a couple of glasses of wine. I used the baton as a paperweight—I was starting to get used to having it around. I was standing by the window looking down into the street when Sanderson arrived in a white Mercedes and found a park on the far kerb. He waited for a break in the traffic and crossed quickly and anxiously, moving his head from side to side. He stumbled a little on gaining the footpath. He was a clumsy man with a lot on his mind.
He was breathing hard when he made it up the stairs and was grateful to sit down, no matter how plain the surroundings and uncomfortable the chair.
‘I’m not a well man,’ he said. ‘Heart trouble. I’m in line for a transplant.’
‘Should be out in the fresh air doing something healthy that you like, not sitting in offices.’
‘I like sitting in offices. Let’s get down to it. I asked around about you, Hardy. The word is you’re fairly honest.’
‘Is that the best I rate?’
‘In your game it’s pretty high. You had it right. I was robbed. Close to half a million that I was keeping from the tax hounds. Looking around, I don’t imagine you go out of your way to pay tax.’
‘I pay as little as I can get away with.’
‘Right. Well these bastards who broke in threatened me and the wife and took the money. I couldn’t make too much of a song and dance about it because of the tax angle and because my wife had no idea how much it was. She’d give me hell if she knew.’
‘So you put the word out that there’d be a reward for information.’
‘I did. I spoke to a couple of people. I told them that I had the serial numbers of the notes and that I’d do a deal with the bastards. And that there’d be something in it for whoever pointed me in the right direction.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. No feedback.’
‘Do you have a record of the serial numbers?’
‘What fucking good would it do? I’m not going to let the banks know I’ve got all this loose cash, am I? But I thought these people mightn’t know that. I thought the possibility of the money being traced just might induce them to cut a deal.’
‘So either the people you used to get the word out didn’t reach the right ears or the ones who grabbed it don’t believe it can be traced and have got on with spending it.’
‘Right.’
He looked old and sick but it was hard to sympathise with him unless he’d been hoarding the money to make a donation to the hospital after his transplant. I doubted it. I told him that Jerry Fowler had somehow got wind of the robbery and the reward and had a line on the perpetrators.
‘But he got killed,’ I said. ‘They got a line on him first.’
Sanderson shook his head. ‘That’s rotten. If I’d known something like that was going to happen I’d have just cut my losses.’
‘Would you?’
He looked at me, his pale, glittering eyes hard behind the lenses. ‘Probably not.’
‘That’s what I thought. Well, I’ve got a client who cared about Jerry Fowler and is willing to spend some money to find out who killed him. I’m going to try, but I’m not optimistic’
‘If you do find out, will you tell me? I’d make it worth your while.’
‘I’ll bet you would.’
‘Would your client want to ... proceed legally?’
‘That’d be a complication for you, right? I don’t know.’
I could see Sanderson’s brain working, trying to figure out how he’d cope if the matter was to be played straight. What deals might he strike with cops, lawyers, the tax office? I didn’t like his chances and neither did he. I picked up the baton just to have something to do while he went through the options. The action caught his attention and his already pale face lost more colour.
‘What... where did you get that?’
I told him. He held out his hand for the baton and I passed it over. He examined it and let it slip from his hands. It clattered against the desk on its way down. He retrieved it, thumped the desk with it, turned and swiped at the filing cabinet. He moved towards me, suddenly energised, and swung. I ducked, gripped his wrist, twisted and the baton fell free. The momentary strength left him and he sank into the chair, breathing hard. He scrabbled a pill from his shirt pocket and held it up. He gasped, unable to speak. I rushed to fill a cup with cold coffee. He gulped the pill down, gripped the edge of the desk and fought for control. When he was composed I pointed to the baton.
‘You recognise this thing?’
‘Yes. It belongs to my stepson.’
* * * *
Sanderson’s stepson, Nathan, worked for a security firm. They weren’t close, had little in common, but he’d never thought that Nathan was anything other than honest, if a bit thick and prone to violence on the football field. He’d shown Sanderson his baton and the nicks he’d filed in it for the number of heads he’d cracked. The notches hadn’t meant anything to me, but to Sanderson they stamped Nathan as the owner of the baton.
Between us, we put it together. The home invaders had worn balaclavas and tracksuits and one of them hadn’t spoken a word. Nathan would have known about the safe and suspected that it held a lot of money. He’d heard his stepfather rant about taxes enough times to doubt that the money could be traced. Somehow, through his association with a security firm, Jerry must have got a sniff of the involvement of Nathan or someone like him. Nathan or his associate got wind of Jerry’s interest and took care of Jerry and came after me. Jerry must have let slip my name somewhere along the line.
We sat and looked at each other. Sanderson’s colour was bad and I hoped he wasn’t going to have another cardiac episode there and then—didn’t look as if he could stand many more.
‘The one who tried to hit you with the baton—what did he look like?’
‘It was too quick and too dark to
tell. Middling in every way’s my impression, but that’s all it is.’
‘And how did you say you dealt with him?’
‘I kicked him in the face and he went arse over tit down the stairs.’
Sanderson nodded.
‘What does that mean?’
‘He rang his mother the other day. She asked him why his voice was funny and he said he had a broken jaw that he’d got from an intruder with a baseball bat he’d run up against.’
‘I have to go after him,’ I said.
Sanderson’s smile was a grimace in a death’s-head face. ‘He flew out to South America yesterday. Holiday, he said, but with that amount of money…’
* * * *
I met Zack Fowler again in the Novotel bar and told him what I’d found out.
‘Get Interpol onto it,’ he said.
‘No chance. The only evidence is the baton and you can bet Sanderson wouldn’t testify to it. It’s a dead end, Mr Fowler. I’m sorry.’
‘Poor Jerry. It was to be his big score but he struck out.’
‘It happens that way sometimes, but you’ve spent too much time in the States. Jerry would have said he made a duck.’
<
* * * *
Crime writing
T
heo Baldwin phoned me from Silverwater Correctional Centre and asked me to come and see him. Said he’d arrange for me to pay a visit even though I wasn’t a relative or a lawyer.
‘Sounds as if you’ve got some pull,’ I said.
‘You know me, Hardy. Always working the angles.’
‘You’ve got yourself a right angle now.’
‘One of your crummy jokes. Excuse me while I split my sides. Seriously, this is important.’
‘It’s a bit of a drive and my car’s heavy on petrol. Call it most of a morning. At my going rate you’re up for a few bucks.’
‘I can arrange to pay you as if I were a free man.’ Theo was always good with grammar.
‘You were supposed to have no assets.’
‘So was Alan Bond.’
‘Will they let you sign a contract with me?’
‘We can work it out. Make it eleven am tomorrow.’
It was too intriguing to pass up. Theo Baldwin had been sentenced to five years for fraud. He’d run insurance scams, a phoney investment consultancy, a dodgy mortgage brokerage and various online fiddles. A lot of people were out a lot of money and, when he was convicted, Theo’s assets were found to be nil and there was no compensation available. But Theo was a charmer and his contrition convinced a soft-hearted judge and resulted in a light sentence. He’d almost done his time and, with his undoubtedly good behaviour, would be out in a couple of months.
I’d met Theo via a client of mine who’d come through a bit of trouble as a professional tennis player—injuries, a drug suspicion, a doubt about his commitment to winning. A gambler had tried to pressure him to throw a game and he wasn’t interested. He was seriously on the comeback trail and didn’t need the aggravation. Theo was the go-between, the honest broker, and I persuaded him to get the gambler to lay off. He claimed not to know what was really going on and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. After that we ran into each other here and there and had a drink. I wasn’t really surprised when the law caught up with him, but it takes all kinds, and he wasn’t the worst. Most of the people he’d conned had been greedy.
I drove out to the gaol and went through the routine of surrendering almost everything I had about my person. I walked past the sealed-off exercise yards where they kept the Asians, the blacks and the whites away from each other. The interview room was Spartan, with plastic tables and chairs and a guard keeping watch. Theo was in prison greens—jumper, tracksuit pants, sneakers. Despite the sloppy dress he still managed to look like the con man he was—closely shaven, sleek hair, bright teeth. He was about forty and stood about 180 centimetres—looked younger and taller.
He was conducted to a chair by a guard and made it look as if the officer was his aide-de-camp.
‘Hello, Hardy,’ he said. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘Why do I take everything you say with a grain of salt?’
He shook his head. ‘Eliminate cliches and well-worn phrases from your pitch. They don’t build confidence.’
‘You’d know all about that. Why am I here, Theo?’
He leaned back in the cheap chair as if he was the CEO of something big. ‘I’ve written my memoirs. Sensational stuff.’
‘I bet.’
‘I mean it. You don’t think I could’ve got away with some of the stuff I did if I hadn’t had help, do you?’
‘I never thought about it. Help?’
‘Insiders, in the insurance firms, car dealers, importers. I name the guilty men. Plus a few of New South Wales’s finest who took a cut. And a pollie.’
‘Sounds like waffle to me.’
‘I wish you’d keep the lousy jokes for the right audience. This book lifts a lot of lids that people thought were jammed down tight.’
‘Okay, suppose I accept that. What d’you want me to do?’
Theo glanced around to make sure the guard was well out of earshot. ‘They wouldn’t let me use a computer so I bashed it out on a typewriter. One copy. I had no carbon paper—does it still exist? I pretended I was writing a dirty joke book—I’ve got a million of ‘em. The screws were amused. Anyway, I gave the typescript, which was pretty rough, to one of the guards to smuggle out and get to an agent. I mean, this book needs careful treatment—legal vetting, fact checking, a lot of editing. The guard I gave it to hasn’t been seen here for a couple of weeks. I can’t find out what happened to him. And I haven’t heard anything from the agent I had in mind. I want you to talk to them both. I know how forceful you can be.’
‘Names and addresses?’
‘I’ve got both for the agent, of course. Just a name for the guard. They won’t let you write anything here, you’ll have to memorise them.’
He gave me the information and I locked it in.
‘I’m not going to do this on a promise for something out of your royalties.’
‘Of course not. I’ve got another name for you. You submit your accounts to her and you’ll get paid.’
He gave me the name and I put it in the memory bank with the other two. I pushed my chair back and stood while he sat there, composed and assured. ‘Theo,’ I said, ‘if this is another one of your scams, you’re safer off in here than on the outside.’
* * * *
First things first. I certainly wasn’t going to give Theo a freebie and I was sceptical about the job anyway. The name of his supposed provider was Rosemary Kingston. I had the number and I phoned her on my mobile when I was outside the prison. She agreed to see me as soon as I could get to her in Alexandria. I made the drive in good time and stopped by the office to pick up a contract form. If Rosemary was paying, no reason why she shouldn’t sign the papers.
Her place was a flat in a neat block in a street off Botany Road. Time was when this whole area was given over to light industry, but now a lot of the factories have gone and there are more residents going to work in suits than blokes in overalls. She buzzed the door open and I went up two flights of stairs, ignoring the lift for the aerobic benefit.
She had the door open when I arrived and I realised that she was vaguely familiar. I had a faint memory of her joining Theo in a pub one night and him leaving the small group of drinkers of which I was one. She was tall and well built, athletic looking, and wore a white blouse, dark red velvet skirt and boots with medium heels. Her hair was short and styled in a way that suited her long face— horsey if you wanted to be unkind, otherwise just strong featured.
'I've got a feeling I've seen you before,' she said as she ushered me into the flat.
We went down a short passage past a kitchen and bedroom to a good-sized living room with decent windows and a balcony.
‘It’s mutual,’ I said, ‘and it’s coming back to me. I think it was in the F
orest Lodge pub. I was having a drink with a few people including Theo. You came in and he sloped off.’
‘That’s right. He pointed you out to me and told me you were a private eye.’
‘Still am and that’s why we’re here. Theo phoned you from the slammer?’
She nodded. ‘Yesterday. He said you’d be in touch today.’
Corris, Peter Page 6
