‘Okay, okay. You bring a bottle and I’ll lay on a coupla girls, nice girls. You finally learning to live a little, Cliff? Ten o’clock, okay?’
‘Not okay. Now and no bottles, no girls; this is business.’
He shook his head. ‘I shoulda known. You have great love inside you, Cliff. But all that comes out is hate and work. How come?’
‘I’m saving myself. Where’s the gizmo?’
He showed me and helped me hook up the reel, then he went back to drawing designs on cartridge paper. I blacked out the little room and ran the film.
He filled the screen, and I’d seen him on TV so many times that it seemed natural to be watching him on film, even though what he was doing couldn’t exactly be called natural. He was naked and very excited and the act he was performing with the young blonde was expressly forbidden by the Bible and the law of the land. It went on for a few minutes, boring after the first few frames because of the single camera angle and the lack of plot. I stopped the show and re-wound the film, thinking that all men have something to hide. Sir Peter Barton, ex-Lord Mayor of the city, racehorse owner and homme d-affairs, always poised for a big take-over, would probably have a lot to hide, it would be expected of him; but kinky carnal knowledge of juveniles was a bit exotic.
I thanked Primo, ignored his revised offer and hoofed it downtown to a philately establishment I’d passed a hundred times and never entered. A thin, wispy man was leaning over a glass counter under which hundreds of stamps were displayed. The counter was wired and the glass was thick; the stamps would have been as hard to steal as the crown jewels. He looked up at me baring tobacco-stained teeth.
‘Yes?’
I hauled out the envelope and started to pull a stamp out with my fingers.
‘No! No!’ He picked up a pair of tweezers and held out a hand for the envelope. He eased several of the stamps out and aligned them on a glass plate. Then he reached up and swung down a magnifying glass mounted on a moveable arm. He peered at the stamps, darting his eyes up to me as he passed from one to the next. He straightened up.
‘Well, sir’, he said. ‘Very nice indeed.’
‘They’re worth something then?’
He was so surprised he almost dropped the tweezers. ‘I should say so.’
‘How much?’
‘Oh, as to that, well it would take some time…’
‘Round about,’ I said. ‘Err on the safe side.’
‘These five would fetch twenty thousand dollars, easily. May I ask, are they yours to sell?’
‘No, they are not mine at all. I’m conducting an investigation, these are part of the evidence.’
‘Evidence’, he breathed. ‘You won’t be quoting me in court, I trust. I could give you exact valuations, be happy to, but as I say it would take time. Are you with the police?’
‘I’m working with them. Can you tell me anything else about these stamps-would they be stolen property or anything like that?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. Let’s have another look.’
He arranged the whole stock, which amounted to thirteen stamps, and looked at them all. ‘Curious’, he said. He dug under the counter and brought up a heavy loose-leaf volume and flicked through it. After a few minutes of this he looked up at me.
‘This is an intriguing collection. These stamps are each worth about four thousand dollars give or take a bit. So you have about fifty or sixty thousand dollars worth here-a bit more allowing for inflation.’
I grunted, which seemed to nettle him. ‘What is more’, he said firmly, ‘I should say they were purchased at regular intervals over the past two years, say, at two monthly intervals.’
My look of interest gratified him. ‘You can be that precise?’
‘Oh yes, very valuable items like these are listed and their sale recorded. These came from a single collection which has been put up for auction at two monthly intervals over the last three years. It was a very famous collection.’
‘Would the auctioneer know who bought them?’
‘Probably not; it’s a secretive business, proxies are used. Even if he did know he would not divulge the information except on the highest authority.’
I thanked him and he tweezed the stamps back into the envelope which I put back in my pocket.
‘They should be in a safe’, he said. It was after five o’clock and the streets were starting to fill up with suburbanites bound for home and fun-lovers staying in the city. I walked up through the park, tying things together in my head: Trudi, it seemed, was putting the squeeze on Barton and buying stamps with the proceeds. There wasn’t a better way to accumulate valuable assets that took up no space and didn’t depreciate. I had two questions. Why was she doing it? She had a prosperous business to judge from her other assets and it looked like she was a very sick woman. Why bother? The other question was the original one-where was Gerry Hadley? Somehow, all things considered, I didn’t give much for his chances. Barton was rumoured to have heavy criminal connections and eliminating the partners in the Winsome Escort Agency would be like opening a can of beer for him.
Home is where the booze is, and also the darts board and the books and the food. I used all these things in moderation and was reading the paper with clear eyes in a clear head when the phone rang at 9.30 am. It was Grant.
‘How’s your investigation going?’ he said.
‘Quietly, how’s yours?’
‘Just a snippet I thought you might like. The lady’s will turned up, four copies to be exact.’
‘Yeah? Who?’
‘Hadley, every cent. Now what can you tell me?’
‘Nothing, but thanks, Grant; maybe I can use that to flush him out.’
‘Cliff, you’ve got today. After today you don’t owe her a thing.’
He hung up and I dialled Sir Peter Barton’s office. A secretary with a north shore voice and manner tried to brush me off, so I became rather rude and left a message which I thought Barton might respond to. He called me back half an hour later.
‘Mr Hardy? I understand you have business with me?’ His voice was slow, soft and pleasant, he’d have to do something about that if he got into Parliament.
‘You might say that, yes. I want to see you now. Tell me where you are and I’ll come over.’
‘I’m in my office. Come by all means. Ah… will you be bringing anything with you?’
I didn’t answer. I drove to my office in the Cross and locked film and stamps away in the safe. Then I caught a cab to Clarence Street where Barton had an office in a glass and aluminium tower which he probably owned. I was passed from one sycophant to another until finally I was in the presence of the great man. He stood about six foot four, which gave him four inches on me, but he was beginning to lose the battle with his waist. He was standing behind a half-acre desk and he waved me into a chair in front of it.
‘Mr Hardy, it’s a little early for a drink, can I offer you coffee?’
‘No. I’ve got the film.’
‘Yes?’
‘You paid Trudi Walker a lot of money.’
‘True, and now I suppose I have to pay you?’
‘Maybe, I haven’t decided. I might just show it on TV for fun. But I don’t care much who puts what in who, I was working for Trudi Walker and I think you had her killed. I’m much more concerned about that.’
The imperturbable mask slipped a bit, and there was an edge in his voice. ‘I certainly did not have her killed. Why would I? You know what she had over me, killing her would only introduce complications, such as yourself.’
‘I assume something went wrong. Look, I’m not green, extortionists get killed, it’s a risk they take. But she hired me to find someone and she paid me and I haven’t done it. I’d like to tie that up, then I can think about other steps.’
He was looking puzzled, probably at having to deal with someone who had something on his mind except money. ‘I don’t see how I can help. Find someone you say? Who?’
‘Gerry Hadley, the business partner. Now, I’m just guessing, but it looks to me as if you decided to wipe out the whole operation. Maybe you removed Hadley to frighten the Walker woman, I don’t know.’