Suddenly, Hindle was up and moving towards the door with the woman. I cursed myself for my inattention and stood up to find the barman almost hovering over me.
‘Will you be settling the bill, sir?’
Hit the slowest mover, the daydreamer. Fair enough. ‘Yeah,’ I said. I pulled a ten-dollar note from my pocket and dropped it on the table. Hindle and the woman had moved to the door and I had the odd illusion that they were dancing.
‘Fourteen dollars eighty-five, sir?’
‘What?’
‘The bill is fourteen dollars eighty-five.’
I threw down a five and headed towards the door, glancing at the monitor as I went-still a couple of minutes to go. Hindle and his companion were twenty metres away, moving towards a telephone. I relaxed and hung back. I had twelve hundred dollars at stake and didn’t want to jeopardise it. This beauty was at least an adult and if she wanted to take on a beast it had nothing to do with me. I checked my watch again and that’s when I saw two men block my view of Hindle and his companion. I took a quick step forward, then I felt a sharp sting beside my spine and a voice spoke softly, very close to my ear.
‘You will move as I direct you. Slowly and calmly, or you are a dead man.’
I believed him. An expert with the right instrument can paralyse or kill you in a split second with scarcely a drop of blood. I don’t know much about anatomy, but whatever was sticking into me felt to be in a vital place. I moved as requested, very slowly. The man was slightly behind me so that I couldn’t see his face without turning, and turning was something I wasn’t going to do. Smaller than me, smelling of tobacco, a soft stepper.
‘What’s happening?’ I said.
‘Don’t speak please!’
Up ahead I could see that Hindle had two escorts, steering him in much the same way I was being steered. The woman was nowhere in sight. Idiot, I thought. A decoy. Hindle went for it 100 per cent and you didn‘t do much better. We went out of the terminal and the procession continued across the road and into the car park. I felt the sweat run down my neck and I was so sensitised to the tiny pinpoint of pain in my back that I was sure it was still there, even though it probably wasn’t. My gliding escort couldn’t have a hand that steady. But by the time I’d worked this out we were in the car park with no-one paying us any attention. Child’s play for this guy to cut me down and roll me under a car. I kept walking, following Hindle and the others towards his BMW.
I was thinking fast but not coming up with anything useful. The two men with Hindle were small, compact types, neatly dressed in suits and wearing dark glasses. Hindle handed over his keys and was bundled into the back of the BMW, one of the men sliding in beside him. The other beckoned me forward. I moved towards the car. The beckoning became an impatient wave and I stooped more than was needed to get into the car. I knew I’d put some distance between myself and the man with the blade and I had room to manoeuvre with the other guy. I was set to spin and start hitting when the car park roof fell in on me.
Things were very blurry after that. I was aware of movement and voices but of only one visual image-a shot of Hindle’s terrified face, drained of colour, running with sweat and with the jowls flapping as he shook his head.
The next thing I knew I was stationary and stretched out on my back behind a bush. I felt a leaf fall on my face and I twitched away from it. My ears were ringing and when I opened my eyes the light made me shut them straight off. It felt as if I’d run into a wall.
After a while I pulled myself together and managed to sit up. The motivation was water- my throat was lined with bark and coughing detached bits of it and sent them scraping down my gullet. I stared, blinked and stared again. I was under a tree that grew beside a hole filled with sand. Beyond the hole I could see something smooth and green with a stick in the middle of it. I’ve woken up in some strange places, but behind bushes at the fifteenth green at Kogarah Golf Course has to be one of the strangest.
There were no players in sight. I got to my feet and steadied myself against the tree. A water bubbler was only a few metres away but it took time to get the confidence to make a try for it. I got there, rubbery-legged and sweating. The water was good for every part of me. I gulped it down, swilled it and spat, splashed it on my face, rubbed it into my hair and washed my hands. When I felt mostly human I checked myself over. It was 3 o’clock-I’d lost almost five hours. Everything else was there-home and office keys, driver’s licence, NRMA, Medicare and credit cards, PEA licence. My. 38 Smith amp; Wesson was still in its holster under my arm. I took off my jacket and unstrapped the holster which was uncomfortable over my sweat-soaked shirt. The movement made me aware of a stiffness and soreness in my left arm. I pushed up my sleeve and saw the puncture mark inside my elbow.
I gave up carrying a wallet years ago, too easy to lose or have lifted. I distribute what money I have around various pockets and I touched them now automatically, not expecting to have been robbed. The right trouser pocket felt fuller than it should have been. I emptied the pocket; in addition to the couple of tens and a five I’d had left after paying for the drinks in the airport bar, I had twelve crisp, new hundred-dollar notes. That’s when I knew for certain that Rex Hindle was dead.
I flagged a cab and went to the office where I cleaned myself up and had a couple of medicinal Scotches. Probably not a good idea on top of whatever dope they’d shot into me, but I was in no mood to care. I sat behind my desk for a minute or two to see if there were any ill effects. All I could feel was the whisky doing me good. I ran through my story in my head and couldn’t see any reason not to tell the truth.
The cops at the Kings Cross station don’t like me particularly but they tolerate me. I put my story on tape over lousy coffee with Detective Senior Sergeant Kev Ingham who heard me out, disapproval written all over his craggy face. I even mentioned the twelve hundred dollars.
‘Shit, Hardy,’ he said as he pressed the OFF button. ‘That’s one of the vaguest fuckin’ statements I’ve ever heard. The only person you’ve been able to describe is the woman.’
‘They doped me. Want to see the needle mark?’
‘No, thanks. But it’s a point. You’d better get down to St Vinnie’s and get a blood test. I’ll give you a chit. That might protect your arse a bit.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You’re supposed to make a contract with your clients, right? Remember the fucking law? I didn’t hear you mention a contract.’
I downed the dregs of the coffee and wished I hadn’t. ‘I haven’t been at my best.’
‘So we’ve seen, and heard. Your licence is shaky, mate. Get to the hospital and go home. You’ll be hearing from us, or someone.’
I got up, feeling capable of making it to the door, just. ‘Meaning?’
‘I ran your Mr Hindle through the computer before you started burbling. He’s known to the authorities, as they say.’
No trace was ever found of Rex Hindle or his BMW, or of the men and the woman who’d dealt with us at the airport. I was found to have a high level of some barbiturate in my blood and to have suffered a minor concussion. A committee that sat periodically to review complaints against PEAs censured me for failing to observe contractual procedures but, in view of my relatively clean record, my licence wasn’t withdrawn. I cleaned up my act, knuckled down to some routine jobs and saw them through. I cut down on the grog and got back into playing tennis at the courts in John Street where Lew Hoad had blossomed.