‘I don’t want him grateful. I just want him… safe.’ He handed me a card; his colour was better already-action did him good. He checked his watch. ‘Ring me later today. Okay? We’ll get started.’
It was 2 a.m. I did a last check on the people and the silverware. Nothing seemed to be missing and when I put Mr and Mrs Olsson, who seemed to have shot for the drunkest couple title, in their cab I was through for the night.
Roberta was snoring gently in an armchair. One brown breast had fallen out of her dress and she had one silver shoe in her lap. I shook her arm gently.
‘Roberta. Party’s over.’
She opened one eye theatrically. ‘Wasn’t it awful?’ she groaned.
‘It was fine-great success.’
‘I’ll send you a cheque. Thanks, Cliff.’ She dropped the eyelid.
I collected my jacket and took off my tie. In the kitchen I annoyed the clearing-up caterers by making myself a chicken sandwich. I took it out to the car with me, chewing slowly and wishing I had some wine to go with it. But I gave up keeping wine in the car a long time ago. As I started the engine I remembered Helen Broadway. I hadn’t seen her go and I didn’t know where she lived. I could ask Roberta-but not just now.
3
I got home to Glebe around 2.30 a.m. I’ve given up tucking the car away in the backyard; the strain of the backing and filling is too much and the local vandals seem to have decided my car isn’t worth their attention. The street is narrow, with a dogleg; my place is just past the dogleg. I let the wheels drift up on to the kerb and slotted her in-slap-dab outside.
I glanced at a newspaper Hilde, my tenant, had left lying around while I got a few last dribbles from a wine cask. We had a commission of enquiry into the early release of prisoners scheme on the front page, and a commission of enquiry into the conduct of boxing on the back. Both dodgy was about all the reaction I could muster. I took the glass up to bed; there was light showing under Hilde’s door; I knocked softly and pushed the door open. She was sitting up in bed, reading. A long strand of her blonde hair was in her mouth, and she was chewing it rhythmically as she read. She lifted her blue, German eyes reluctantly from the page.
‘It’s 2.30’, I said.
‘I’m reading Gorky Park.’
‘That explains it. Goodnight.’
I slept late. By the time I got up, Hilde had gone off to do her dental research. She tells me that fluoride in the water has cut dental decay by 84 per cent, so that the emphasis in her trade these days is on preserving and presenting the dentition. When I asked her what that meant she said, ‘Capping and straightening’. I understood that.
She’d left a pot of coffee on a low flame, and I got to work on that while I ran a routine check on Paul Guthrie through the telephone book and The Company Index. He lived in North-bridge, between the golf course and Fig Tree Point. It sounded like a well-preserved and presented address for a client to have. Guthrie Marinas Pty Ltd was at Balgowlah, Double Bay and Newport. The ski lodge and dude ranch were probably called the Alpine this and the Western that. Guthrie Enterprises was listed as a private company; Paul Guthrie, principal.
I rang him at 10.30; he came across eager and energetic; he made sixty-two sound like something to look forward to.
‘Tell you what’, he said. ‘I have to go up to Newport to look a few things over. Like to come up? Go out on a boat?’
‘Is there any point?’
‘Yes, Ray kept a lot of his stuff on a boat up there. I suppose you could look through it. Must be a photo of him there- you’ll need that?’
‘Yes, I will. Anything else?’
He paused. ‘Yes. His girlfriend’s there. Girlfriend that was. She’s a nice kid. I talked to her, of course. Said she hadn’t heard from Ray, didn’t know anything. But it might be worth your while to talk to her.’
‘Okay. I’ll meet you there. I’ve got the address.’
He sounded nonplussed. ‘How’s that?’
‘I looked you up in the book and the commercial directory. You check out just fine, Mr Guthrie. You got my credentials, remember? And Roberta was a little past giving you a reference last night.’
He laughed. ‘That’s smart. I’ll give you some money. What time suits you?’
‘Let’s say at the marina at noon. Nothing’s happened to change your mind about this, has it?’
‘No. Why?’
‘It sometimes happens that way. You act, like by hiring me, and something else happens. Never mind. Noon.’
It was hot and Friday, which meant heavy traffic on the road and a slow, sweaty drive to Newport. I was passed by cool-looking people in air-conditioned cars and I wondered, not for the first time, whether I should get a soft top. I didn’t have a woman to ride in it with me-wearing a scarf and with her sunglasses pushed back on the top of her head-but maybe I could do something about that. Roberta Landy-Drake’s cheque would take care of the rent and the mortgage for a month; a couple of steady weeks work for Guthrie, and maybe then I could think about a soft top. I thought about it anyway as I drove sedately north, past the hamburger bars and surf shops, and eventually past the pub in Newport where we used to come in the bad old days with our genuine thirsts and phoney addresses, and pass ourselves off as bona fide travellers.
The approach to the marina was through a bumpy car park beside a pub that hadn’t existed back in the Sabbatarian days. I parked in a small patch of shade that would get smaller as the day wore on. The marina was an arrangement of boat sheds, office, workshops and jetties all connected on different levels by steps and walkways. I walked down to wards it, jiggling my keys and thinking ambivalent thoughts about boats.
Guthrie was waiting for me on a wooden walkway that led to the moorings. He was wearing jeans, a tee-shirt and canvas shoes. I was relieved to see that he didn’t affect the cap and scarf of the pseudo sailor, but I hadn’t expected he would. We shook hands and I realised that the hard ridges I’d felt the night before were from boat work. He might have sounded full of beans on the phone but he looked a little tired now, not at the peak of his form, and he was hiding his eyes behind sunglasses.
‘Going out to check some of the moorings’, he said. ‘Routine work in this game.’
‘Don’t you employ people to do that?’
‘Sure, but I like to keep my hand in. Along here, and watch your step.’
The planks and rails seemed to be in good condition-no splinters, no flaking paint. There must have been more than a hundred boats tied up there-big, swank things like overblown birds and neat, smaller craft with more interesting lines. The water was a deep green around the pylons and the boats were mostly white with blocks of red, blue and brown. The bright sun flashed on brass name plates- Pocohontas, Bundeena, Shangri-la.
Guthrie stepped over piles of rope and mooring lines like a mountain goat on a familiar path; I followed him carefully to where a handsome motor yacht was moored between high, rope-wrapped pylons. Satisfaction was painted in bold, white letters across the stern and at the bow on the side I could see. A flag was flying from a high mast and a couple of seagulls hopped along a polished rail on the side. As boats go, this was a beauty. Guthrie jumped down on to the deck from the jetty untroubled by the distance or the motion of the boat. I edged down the metal ladder a few steps, waited for the rise and stepped aboard carefully.
‘Not used to boats?’
‘Been a while.’
‘This is the one Ray used to knock about in mostly. Not in bad nick, is she?’
I nodded. Everything looked well cared-for without being fussy. Truth was, I was accustoming myself to the motion but, to show willingness, I went under the awning that covered the rear section of the deck and looked around. I noted the life jackets safely stowed. Guthrie noted me noting and grinned.
‘Don’t know why, but I feel a bit better about things when I’m on the boat. Hard to believe he could go bad, the old Ray. Help me to cast off, will you? Then you can go below and poke around-look at anything you like.’