‘We’ve only been back a couple of weeks; it’s been quiet, but you never know with that mob.’
I nodded, she lit up and puffed an enormous cloud of smoke at the window. I looked around at the artefacts of the squat-packing case shelves, a hose running in through the window to the sink, the small carton of milk on the table. She read my mind.
‘You’re wondering what a silvertail like Kenny was doing living in a dump like this?’
I pushed the money across to her. ‘Yes.’
She picked it up and put it away with the cigarettes.
‘Kenny and the others were taking on Forbes’, she spoke around the cigarette. ‘Kenny was living here as a political act, that’s what he said.’
‘Who else was in the group?’
‘Chris and Lennie, couple more. I think I’ve said enough, I don’t know a bloody thing about you. Do I get the other ten?’
‘You’re not political yourself?’
‘Shit no, I squat ‘cos it’s easy.’
‘Did they have trouble with the developers before?’
‘Oh yeah, plenty-slashed tyres, windows busted-usual things.’
‘Anything since you moved back?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What sort of action did Kenneth and the others take?’
‘Letters to the papers, attending council meetings, street meetings about the plan. They’re going to build right down to the water, you know? We won’t be able to see the bit we see now.’
I gave her another ten dollars and went across to the dusty, cobwebbed window. Blackwattle Bay was an ugly, oily gleam under the dull grey sky and its Glebe shore was a blasted landscape of car bodies, timber and scratchy grass. The view was a long way short of cheerful but there was water in it, it promised better things; it was Sydney. I thanked Fay and tramped through the back yards; Lenny and Chris weren’t in sight and I pulled myself up to one of the windows of the house Silverman had occupied. It was in bad shape, there were black-rimmed holes in the floorboards, and plumbing had been ripped out and hung limp and useless on the kitchen wall.
I drove to the post office and looked up Forbes Realty. The address in Norton Street, Leichhardt niggled at me as I wrote it down. Back in the car I found out why-Kenneth Silverman’s parking ticket had been incurred in Norton Street.
It seemed like time for some telephone research; I went home, made a drink and called a few people including Cy Sackville, my lawyer, and Grant Evans, a senior cop and friend. The results were interesting. Forbes Realty was a semi-solid firm and the word in financial circles was that it was over-extended. Its two leading shareholders were Horace Silverman and Clive Patrick. Silverman’s interests were extensive and Forbes was a small part of his action. From Evans I learned that Forbes Realty had been burglarised eight weeks back and that enquiries were proceeding, also that a Constable Ian Williamson had stopped MG sports model JLM 113 registered to Kenneth Silverman and booked the driver for speeding. Evans arranged for me to talk to Williamson and that made one favour I owed him.
I reckoned I’d put in a day. It was time to tease out a few loose ends and do some thinking. I needed to know more about Forbes Realty and Kenneth’s tactics, also, I was stalling: I didn’t like the look of things and I might have to play a very careful hand. I bought some Lebanese food on the way home and washed it down with a few drinks. Then I took a long walk around Glebe; they were selling food and drink and fun in the main road and God knows what in the back streets and lanes. I nodded to the shop and street people I knew, and avoided the dog shit and cracks in the pavement by long habit. The water was shining under a clear sky and a slight breeze brought a salty tang to the nostrils. You wouldn’t have washed your socks in the water and every tree in the place was struggling against the pollution, but it was home and I liked it. Its minute foreshore didn’t need blocking out with flats.
I went home and phoned a contact in motor registry. He got back to me an hour later with the information that Silverman’s car hadn’t been sold, traded, stolen or smashed in the last two months. It had disappeared. I went to sleep wondering about how Kenneth reconciled the car with his radicalism; I wondered whether Horace Silverman’s delicate business negotiations involved Forbes Realty, and I wondered whether Dr Garson would accept if I asked her out to dinner.
At ten in the morning I phoned Horace Silverman and asked him about his role in Forbes Realty. He went silent and I had to prompt him.
‘I can see you’ve been doing your job, Mr Hardy.’
‘I hope so.’ I was thinking fast trying to guess at his meaning and keep the upper hand. ‘Would you care to tell me all about it?’
There was another pause and then he spoke very deliberately. ‘I don’t know how you found out, but it’s true-Kenneth and I had a falling out over Forbes Realty.’
I breathed out gently. ‘How bad?’
‘Quite serious. He was very critical of the firm, I suppose you know why.’
‘Yeah. You didn’t tell me he’d stopped taking your money.’
‘That’s true too. I’m sorry I wasn’t frank, Mr Hardy. It’s painful to discuss.’
I could imagine his cocky little face expressing the pain, and part of it would be due to having to apologise and explain. It seemed like the right time to suggest that we weren’t looking at a happy ending.
‘I suppose you hoped I’d find the boy quick and easy, and none of this’d matter?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘something like that. I take it it’s not going to be easy?’
‘Right. Now, tell me about Forbes Realty; do those business negotiations you mention concern it?’
He snorted. ‘No, not at all. That’s a very big deal, Mr Hardy, and I don’t want to discuss it on the phone.’
‘Forbes is small beer to you?’
‘More or less, it’s a useful investment.’
‘Are you actively involved with the company?’
‘No, not really. I paid it some attention after Kenneth made his.. allegations.’
‘Were you satisfied?’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t enquire too deeply, other things took precedence.’
I’d heard that before-from parents who wept while children with scarred arms died in hospital, and from husbands who’d come home to empty houses and notes. Silverman broke in on these thoughts: ‘Can you tell me what progress you’ve made, Hardy?’ The Mr had gone, he was asserting himself again, and I wasn’t in the mood for it.
‘No’, I said. ‘I’ll call again when I can.’
It was close to six o’clock when I got to Erskineville; petrol fumes and dust hung in the air and Williamson, a beefy, blonde man, was sitting in his singlet on the front step of a terrace house breathing the mixture and drinking beer. We shook hands and I accepted a can.
‘Evans told me to co-operate’, he said popping another can. ‘What d’you want to know?’
I got out the photostat of the speeding summons and handed it to him. ‘Remember this?’ I drank some beer, it was very cold.
‘Yeah, pretty well. That should have come up by now. What’s going on?’
‘He’s dropped out of sight and I’m looking for him. Can you describe him?’
Williamson took a long suck on the can. ‘He didn’t get out of the car, so I can’t be sure of his height or build-I’d guess tall and slim, maybe, a bit taller and thinner than you. He was dark, narrow face…’ He held up his hands helplessly.
‘Hair?’
‘Not much of it, dark and well back at the sides, peak in front, sort of.’
‘Age?’
‘Forties.’
‘Clothes?’
‘Suit-no shirt and tie, the jacket was on the front seat.’
‘Where did he get the licence from, pocket or glove box?’
‘Can’t remember, sorry.’
‘He was alone?’
‘Right.’
‘Did you see anything in the back of the car-clothes, suitcase?’
‘Can’t be sure, the interior light was only on for a second.’
‘How was that?’
‘Well, when I went up he opened the door as if he was going to get out but then he shut it again, you know those sports cars, they’re short on leg room. Maybe there was something in the back, a bag, a parcel, I don’t know. Why?’